1 



DEATH OF LITTLE DORRIT. 



Mrs. M. G. Hayman, Original of 
Dickens Character, Passes Away. 

LONDON, September 23— A link with 
Charles Dickens has been severed by the 
death at ;Southsea of Mrs. G. M. Hayman, 
one of his close personal friends, who is 
said by »her family to have been the 
original of Little Dorrit. iShe would have 
reached her eighty-first birthday next 
month. 

Mrs. Hayman' s father was a solicitor 
living in London, and was for years an 
intimate friend of Dickens. The novelist 
was a frequent visitor at his house and 
took keen interest in all the members of 
his family. 

Mrs. Hayman's brother, who died while 
still a lad, is said to have inspired an- 
other Dickens character, Tiny Tim. The 
boy met with an accident while at play, 
being impaled on some railings, but he 
was a cheery little fellow in spite of the 
injury that made him a cripple. 






I 




SCROOGE AND THE GHOST. 



CHEISTMAS STOEIES 



FROM 



HOUSEHOLD WORDS AND ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 



BY 



CHARLES DICKENS 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



NEW YOKE: 

HURST & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

122 NASSAU STKEET. 



1885. 









48 65 55 

JUL 2 194Z 






PREFACE. 

The narrow space within which it was necessary to 
confine these Christmas Stories when they were origi- 
nally published, rendered their construction a matter of 
some difficulty, and almost necessitated what is peculiar 
in their machinery. I never attempted great elabora- 
tion of detail in the working out of character within 
such limits, believing that it could not succeed. My 
purpose was, in a whimsical kind of masque which 
the good-humour of the season justified, to awaken some 
loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in 
a Christian land. 















CONTENTS. 



A CHEISTMAS CAROL 

THF CHIMES 

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

THE BATTLE OP LIFE . 

THE HAUNTED MAN 



PAGE 

1 

77 
157 
241 
321 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL, 

IN PROSE. 

BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS. 



STAVE ONE. 
mauley's ghost. 

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt 
vhatever about that. The register of his burial was 
igned by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and 
he chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's 
Lame was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to 
ut his hand to. 

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. 

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own 
:nowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door- 
Lail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a 
offin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the 
rade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; 
jid my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the 
Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to 
ppeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a 
jpor-nail. 

I Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How 
tuld it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners 

Vr 1 don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole 

lecutor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole 

Viduary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner, 
id even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the 

\ event but that he was an excellent man of business 



2 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with 
an undoubted bargain. . 

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to 
the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley 
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or noth- 
ing wonderful can come of the story I am going t<5 
relate If we were not perfectly convinced that Ham- 
let's Father died before the play began, there would be 
nothing: more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, | 
in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there 
woSd be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashlj 
turning out after dark in a breezy spot— say bamt faui 
Churchyard for instance-literally to astonish his son 

weak mind. „, , „, , , mi,„, 

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. Ther 

it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse doc 

Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooj 

and Marley. Sometimes people new to the busme 

called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley but > 

answered to both names. It was all the same uo him 

Oh' But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstor 

Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, g/asping scrapn 

clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp 

flint, from which no steel had ever struck out gener< j 

fire-' secret, and self-contained, and solitary as a 

oyster. The cold within him froze his old features nippe 

his pointed noise, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gai 

made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; ana spoke 01 

shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was c 

his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chm. t 

carried his own low temperature always about wi 

him; he iced his office in the, dog-days; and didn t tna 

it one degree at Christmas. 

External heat and cold had little influence on Scroog 
No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill hi. 
No wind that blew was bitterer than ne, no falling smfj 
was more intent upon its.purpose no pelting rain Uf 
open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where r 
have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, a 
sleet, could boast of the advantage oyer himmonly 
respect. They often " came down" handsomely, , 
Scrooge never did. # 

Nobody ever stopped him m the street to say, w 
gladsome looks, " My dear Scrooge, how are you? W J 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 3 

will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to 
bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was 
o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life in- 
quired the way to such and such a place of Scrooge. 
Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and 
when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners 
into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their 
tails as though they said, " No eye at all is better than 
an evil eye, dark master!" 

But what did Scrooge care ! It was the very thing he 
liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of 
life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, 
was what the knowing ones call " nuts" to Scrooge. 

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, 
on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting- 
house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy 
withal: and he could hear the people in the court out- 
side, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands 
upon their breasts^ and stamping their feet upon the 
pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had 
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already — it 
had not been light all day — and candles were flaring in 
the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy 
smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came 
pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense 
without, that although the court was of the narrowest, 
the houses opposite were mere phantoms; To see the 
dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, 
one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and 
was brewing on a large scale. 

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that 
he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal 
little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. 
Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so 
very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he 
couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in 
his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with 
the shovel, the master predicted that it would be neces- 
sary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his 
white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the can- 
dle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagi- 
nation, he failed. 

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a 
cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, 



4 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

who came upon him so quickly that this was the first 
intimation he had of his approach. 

" Bah!" said Scrooge. " Humbug!" 

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the 
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all 
in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes 
sparkled, and his breath smoked again. 

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. 
" You don't mean that, I am sure?" 

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What 
right have you to be merry? What reason have you to 
be merry? You're poor enough." 

"Come, then," returned the nephew, gaily. " What 
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to 
be morose? You're rich enough." 

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of 
the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up 
with " Humbug!" 

" Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew. 

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I 
live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! 
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to 
you but a time for paying bills without money; a time 
for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour 
richer; a time for balancing your books and having 
every item in 'em through a round dozen of months pre- 
sented dead against you? If I could work my will," said 
Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 
' Merry Christmas/ on his lips, should be boiled with 
his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly 
through his heart. He should!" 

" Uncle!" pleaded the nephew. 

"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christ 
mas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine." 

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you 
don't keep it." 

" Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. " Much 
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!" 

" There are many things from which I might have de- 
rived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," re- 
turned the nephew. " Christmas among the rest. But 
I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, 
when it has come round — apart from the veneration due 
to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 5 

can be apart from that — as a good time; a kind, for- 
giving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know 
of in the long calendar of the year, when men and 
women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts 
freely, and to think of people below them as if they 
really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not an- 
other race of creatures bound on other journeys. And, 
therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold 
or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me 
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" 

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Be- 
coming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he 
poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for- 
ever. 

" Let me hear another sound from you" said Scrooge, 
"and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situa- 
tion. You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, 
turning to his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into 
Parliament." 

" Don't be angry, uncle. Come ! Dine with us to- 
morrow." 

Scrooge said that he would see him — yes, indeed he 
did. He went the whole length of the expression, and 
said that he would see him in that extremity first. 

"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?" 

" Why did you get married?" said Scrooge. 

"Because I fell in love." 

" Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that 
were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous 
than a merry Christmas. " Good-afternoon!" 

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before 
that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming 
now?" 

"Good-afternoon," said Scrooge. 

" I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why 
cannot we be friends?" 

Good-afternoon," said Scrooge. 

I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so reso- 
lute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have 
been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to 
Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the 
last. So, A Merry Christmas, uncle!" 

"Good-afternoon!" said Scrooge. 

"And, A Happy New Year!" 



a 



6 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

"Good-afternoon!" said Scrooge. 

His nephew left the room without an angry word, not- 
withstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow 
the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he 
was, was warmer than Scrooge ; for he returned them 
cordially. 

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge, who 
overheard him; "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a 
week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry 
Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam." 

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let 
two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, 
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, 
in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their 
hands, and bowed to him. 

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the 
gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure 
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?" 

" Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," 
Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very 
night." 

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented 
by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, present- 
ing his credentials. 

It certainly was ; for they had been two kindred 
spirits. At the ominous word, "liberality," Scrooge 
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the creden- 
tials back. 

" At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said 
the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usu- 
ally desirable that we should make some slight provision 
for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the 
present time. Many thousands are in want of common 
necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of com- 
mon comforts, sir." 

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge. 

" Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down 
the pen again. 

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. 
"Are they still in operation?" 

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish 
I could say they were not." 

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, 
then?" said Scrooge. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. ? 

"Both very busy, sir." 

" Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that 
something had occurred to stop them in their useful 
course," said Scrooge. "I am very glad to hear it." 

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish 
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," re- 
turned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring 
to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, 
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because 
it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, 
and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down 
for?" 

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied. 

"You wish to be anonymous?" 

" I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. " Since you 
ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I 
don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't 
afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the 
establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough: 
and those who are badly off must go there." 

Many can't go there; and many would rather die." 
If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had 
better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Be- 
sides — excuse me — I don't know that." 

" But you might know it," observed the gentleman. 

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's 
enough for a man to understand his OAvn business, and 
not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me 
constantly. Good-afternoon, gentlemen!" 

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their 
point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his 
labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a 
more facetious temper than was usual with him. 

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that 
people ran about with flaring links, proffering their ser- 
vices to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them 
on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose 
gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge 
out of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and 
struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremu- 
lous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chatter- 
ing in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. 
In the main street, at the corner of the court, some 
labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted 






8 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged 
men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and 
winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The 
water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sud- 
denly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The 
brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries 
crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale 
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' 
trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with 
which it was next to impossible to believe that such 
dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. 
The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Man- 
sion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to 
keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should: and 
even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings 
on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty 
in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his 
garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to 
buy the beef. 

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting 
cold. If the good St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil 
Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, in- 
stead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he 
would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one 
scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry 
cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at 
Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol; 
but at the first sound of 

"God bless you, merry gentleman, 
May nothing you dismay !" 

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that 
the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, 
and even more congenial frost. 

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house 
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his 
stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk 
in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and 
put on his hat. 

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said 
Scrooge. 

"If quite convenient, sir." 

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. 









A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 9 



If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself 
ill-used, I'll be bound?" 

The clerk smiled faintly. 

" And yet/' said Scrooge, " you don't think me ill-used, 
when I paj r a day's wages for no work." 

The clerk observed that it was only once a year. 

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 
twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning his 
great-coat to -the chin. " But I suppose you must have 
the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning." 

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked 
out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, 
and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter 
dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), 
went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of 
boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas 
Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he 
could pelt, to play at Blindman's buff. 

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual mel- 
ancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, 
and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's- 
book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which 
had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were 
a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building 
up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that 
one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there 
when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek 
with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. 
It was old enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody 
lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out 
as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, 
who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his 
hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old 
gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius 
of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the 
threshold. 

Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all particu- 
lar about the knocker on the door, except that it was 
very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it, 
night and morning, during his whole residence in that 
place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called 
fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even 
including — which is a bold word — the corporation, alder- 
men, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that 



IHRISTMAS CAROL. 

Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since 
his last mention of his seven-years' dead partner that 
afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he 
can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in 
the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its 
undergoing any intermediate process of change — not a 
knocker, but Marley's face. 

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as 
the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal 
light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was 
not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley 
used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its 
ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if 
by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide 
open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its 
livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to 
be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather 
than a part of its own expression. 

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was 
a knocker again. 

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was 
not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had 
been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he 
put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned 
it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. 

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he 
shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, 
as if he half -expected to be terrified with the sight of 
Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there 
was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws 
and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, " Pooh, 
pooh!" and closed it with a bang. 

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. 
Every room above, and every cask in the wine mer- 
chant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal 
of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be 
frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked 
across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly, too: trimming 
his candle as he went. 

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six 
up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young 
Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have 
got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, 
with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 11 

towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was 
plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is 
perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a loco- 
motive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half- 
a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted 
the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty 
dark with Scrooge's dip. 

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Dark- 
ness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But, before he shut 
his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that 
all was right. He had just enough recollection of the 
face to desire to do that. 

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they 
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the 
sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; 
and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in 
his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody 
in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was 
hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. 
Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two 
fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. 

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself 
in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. 
Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; 
put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his night- 
cap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel. 

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a 
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and 
brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation 
of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace 
was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, 
and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed 
to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, 
Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messen- 
gers descending through the air on clouds like feather- 
beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea 
in butter boats, hundreds of figures to attract his 
thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years 
dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed 
up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at 
first, with power to shape some picture on its surface 
from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there 
would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every 
one. 



12 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

"Humbug!" said Scrooge, and walked across the 
room . 

After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw 
his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest 
upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and 
communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a 
chamber in the highest story of the building. It was 
with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplica- 
ble dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to 
swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely 
made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did 
every bell in the house. 

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, 
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had 
begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking 
noise, deep down below, as if some persons were drag- 
ging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine mer- 
chant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard 
that ghosts in haunted houses were described as drag- 
ging chains. 

The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and 
then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; 
then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards 
his door. 

"It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't be- 
lieve it." 

His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it 
came on through the heavy door, and passed into the 
room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying 
flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him! 
Marley's ghost! " and then fell again. 

The same face; the very same. Marley in his pig-tail, 
usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the 
latter bristling like his pig- tail, and his coat-skirts, and 
the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped 
about his middle. It was long and wound about him 
like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it 
closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, 
and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was trans- 
parent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking 
through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his 
coat behind. 

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no 
bowels, but he had never believed it until now. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 13 

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked 
the phantom through and through, and saw it standing 
before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its 
death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the 
folded kerchief bound about his head and chin, which 
wrapper he had not observed before; he was still in- 
credulous, and fought against his senses. 

'"'How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 
"What do you want with me?" 

"Much!"— Marley's voice, no doubt about it. 

"Who are you?" 

"Ask me who I was" 

"Who were you, then?" said Scrooge, raising his voice. 
" You're particular, for a shade." He was going to 
say "to a shade," but substituted this, as more appro- 
priate. 

" In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley." 

" Can you — can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking 
doubtfully at him. 

"lean." 

"Doit, then." 

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know 
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a 
condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of 
its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of 
an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down 
on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite 
used to it. 

"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost. 

" I don't," said Scrooge. 

" What evidence would you have of my reality beyond 
that of your own senses?" 

" I don't know," said Scrooge. 

"Why do you doubt your senses?" 

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. 
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. 
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, 
a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. 
There's more of gravy than of grave about you, what- 
ever you are!" 

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, 
nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then. 
The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of 
distracting his own attention, and keeping down his 



14 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very mar- 
row in his bones. 

To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for 
a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with 
him. There was something very awful, too, in the 
spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of 
his own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was 
clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly mo- 
tionless, its hair, and skirts, and tasesls, were still agi- 
tated as by the hot vapour from an oven. 

"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning 
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and 
wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the 
vision's stony gaze from himself. 

" I do," replied the Ghost. 

" You are not looking at it," said Scrooge. 

" But I see it," said the Ghost, " notwithstanding." 

"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow 
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by r 
legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, ;' 
tell you; humbug!" 

Ait this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its 
chain with such a dismal and appalling noise that 
Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from 
falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his hor- 
ror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round 
his head, as if it were too warm to wear in-doors, its 
lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! 

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands 
before his face. 

"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do 
you trouble me?" 

" Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do 
you believe in me or not?" 

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits 
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?" 

" It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, 
" that the spirit within him should walk abroad among 
his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit 
goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after 
death. It is doomed to wander through the world 
— oh, woe is me! — and witness what it cannot share, 
but might have shared on earth, and turned to hap- 
piness!" 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 15 

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and 
wrung its shadowy hands. 

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell 
me why?" 

" I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. 
" I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it 
on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore 
it. Is its pattern strange to you?" 

Scrooge trembled more and more. 

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the 
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? 
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas 
Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a pon- 
derous chain!" 

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expec- 
tation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or 
sixty fathoms of iron cable; but he could see nothing. 

" Jacob," he said imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, 
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!" 

" I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes 
from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed 
by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I 
tell you what I would. A very little more, is all that is 
permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot 
linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our 
counting-house — mark me! — in life my spirit never roved 
beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; 
and weary journeys lie before me!" 

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became 
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches' pockets. 
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, 
but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees. 

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," 
Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though 
with humility and deference. 

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated. 

" Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. " And travelling 
all the time?" 

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no 
peace. Incessant torture of remorse." 

"You travel fast?" said Scrooge. 

" On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost. 

" You might have got over a great quantity of ground 
in seven years," said Scrooge 



16 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and 
clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the 
night, that the Ward would have been justified in in- 
dicting it for a nuisance. 

" Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the 
phantom, "not to know that ages of incessant labour, 
by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into 
eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all 
developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit work- 
ing kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will 
find its mortal life too short for its vast means of useful- 
ness. Not to know that no space of regret can make 
amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such 
was I! Oh! such was I!" 

" But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," 
faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to him- 
self. 

" Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 
" Mankind was my business. The common welfare was 
my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevo- 
lence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade 
were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of 
my business!" 

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the 
cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily 
upon the ground again. 

" At this time of the rolling year, "the spectre said, " I 
suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow- 
beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them 
to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor 
abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light 
would have conducted me/" 

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spec- 
tre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceed- 
ingly. 

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly 
gone." 

" I will," said Scrooge. " But don't be hard upon me! 
Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!" 

" How it is that I appear before you in a shape that 
you can see, I may not tell. I have sat-invisible beside 
you many and many a day." 

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and 
wiped the perspiration from his brow. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 17 

'•'That is no light part of my penance," pursued the 
Ghost. " I am here to-night to warn you that you have 
yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance 
and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer." 

"You were always a good friend to me/' said Scrooge. 
"Thank 'ee!" 

" You will be haunted/' resumed the Ghost, " by Three 
Spirits." 

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's 
had done. 

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" 
he demanded, in a faltering voice. 

"It is." 

" I — I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge. 

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot 
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-mor- 
row^, when the bell tolls One." 

"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, 
Jacob?" hinted Scrooge. 

"Expect the second on the next night at the same 
hour. The third, upon the next night when the last 
stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me 
no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remem- 
ber what has passed between us!" 

When it had said these words, the spectre took its 
wrapper from the table and bound it round its head, as 
before. Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth 
made, when the jaws were brought together by the 
bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and 
found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an 
erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its 
arm. 

The apparition walked backward from him; and at 
every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so 
that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It 
beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When 
they were within two paces of each other, Marley's 
Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. 
Scrooge stopped. 

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear; for 
on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of con- 
fused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamenta- 
tion and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and 
self -accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a mo- 
3 



18 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

ment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated om 
upon the bleak, dark night. 

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his 
curiosity. He looked out. 

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither 
and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. 
Every one of them wore chains like Mar ley's Ghost; 
some few (they might be guilty governments) were 
linked together; none were free. Many had been per- 
sonally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been 
quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, 
with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ancle, who 
cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched 
woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a door- 
step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that 
they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, 
and had lost the power forever. 

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist 
enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their 
spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it 
had been when he walked home. 

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by 
which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as 
he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were 
undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped 
at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he 
had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse 
of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the 
Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of 
repose, went straight to bed, without undressing, and 
fell asleep upon the instant. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 19 



STAVE TWO. 

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. 

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark that, looking 
out of bed. he could scarcely distinguish the transparent 
window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He 
was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret 
eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck 
the four quarters. So he listened for the hour. 

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on 
from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regu- 
larly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past 
two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An 
icicle must have got into the works. Twelve! 

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this 
most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat 
twelve, and stopped. 

"Why, it isn't possible, 7 ' said Scrooge, "that I can 
have slept through a whole day and far into another 
night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to 
the sun, and this is twelve at noon!" 

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of 
bed, and groped his way to the window.. He was obliged 
to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown 
before he could see anything; and could see very little 
then. All he could make out was, that it was still very 
f°ggy & n d extremely cold, and that there was no noise 
of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, 
as there unquestionably would have been if night had 
beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the 
world. This was a great relief, because "Threes days 
after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Eben- 
ezer Scrooge or his order," and so forth, would have 
become a mere United States' security if there were no 
days to count by. 

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, 
and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of 
it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; 
and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he 
thought. 



20 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every 
time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, 
that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like 
a strong spring released, to its first position, and pre- 
sented the same problem to be worked all through, 
" Was it a dream or not?" 

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone 
three-quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, 
that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the 
bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour 
was passed; and, considering that he could no more go 
to sleep than go to heaven, this was perhaps the wisest 
resolution in his power. 

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once 
convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, 
and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his lis- 
tening ear. 

" Ding, dong!" 

" A quarter-past," said Scrooge, counting. 

"Ding, dong!" 

" Half -past!" said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

" A quarter to it," said Scrooge. 

" Ding, dong!" 

"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and 
nothing else!" 

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now 
did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy one. Light 
flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains 
of his bed were drawn. 

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, 
by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains 
at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. 
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, 
starting up into a half -recumbent attitude, found him- 
self face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew 
them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am stand- 
ing in the spirit at your elbow. 

It was a strange figure — like a child: yet not so like a 
child as like an old man, viewed through some super- 
natural medium, which gave him the appearance of hav- 
ing receded from the view, and being diminished to a 
child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck 
and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 21 

the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom 
was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscu- 
lar; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncom- 
mon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, 
were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic 
of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a 
lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held 
a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singu- 
lar contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress 
trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing 
about it was, that from the crown of its head there 
sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was 
visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its 
using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a 
cap, which it now held under its arm. 

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with in- 
creasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For 
as its belt sparkled and glittered, now in one part and 
now in another, and what was light one instant, at an- 
other time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its 
distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with 
one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs with- 
out a head, now a head without a body: of which dis- 
solving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense 
gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very 
wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and 
clear as ever. 

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold 
to me?" asked Scrooge. 

"lam!" 

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if 
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a dis- 
tance. 

" Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded. 

" I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." 

"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge, observant of its 
dwarfish stature. 

"No. Your past." 

Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if 
anybody could have asked him; but he had a special 
desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be 
covered. 

"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon 
put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not 



22 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

enough that you are one of those whose passions made 
this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to 
wear it low upon my brow!" 

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend 
or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the 
Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to 
inquire what business brought him there. 

"Your welfare!" said the Ghost. 

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could 
not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest 
would have been more conducive to that end. The 
Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said imme- 
diately: 

"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!" 

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him 
gently by the arm. 

" Rise! and walk with me!" 

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that 
the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian 
purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a 
long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly 
in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that 
he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though 
gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He 
rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the win- 
dow, clasped its robe in supplication. 

"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable 
to fall." 

" Bear but a touch of my hand there" said the Spirit, 
laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in 
more than this!" 

As the words were spoken, they passed through the 
wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields 
on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not 
a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the 
mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, win- 
ter day, with snow upon the ground. 

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands 
together, as he looked about him. "I was bred in this 
place. I was a boy here!" 

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, 
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared 
still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was 
conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 23 

one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, 
and joys, and cares, long, long, forgotten. 

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what 
is that upon your cheek?" 

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his 
voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to 
lead him where he would. 

"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit. 

" Remember it!" cried Scrooge, with fervour; " I could 
walk it blindfold." 

" Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" ob- 
served the Ghost. " Let us go on." 

They walked along the road. Scrooge recognising 
every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market- 
town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its 
church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now 
were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their 
backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and 
carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great 
spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields 
were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed 
to hear it. 

"These are but shadows of the things that have 
been," said the Ghost. "They have no consciousness 
of us." 

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, 
Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was 
he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did 
his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went 
past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard 
them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted 
at cross-roads and byways, for their several homes! 
What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon 
merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him? 

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. 
"A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there 
still." 

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. 

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, 
and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with 
a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, 
and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one 
of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little 
used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows 



24 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and 
strutted in the stables, and the coach-houses and sheds 
were overrun with -grass. Nor was it more retentive 
of its ancient state within; for entering the dreary hall, 
and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, 
they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There 
was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the 
place, which associated itself somehow with too much 
getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat. 

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to 
a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, 
and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer 
still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of 
these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and 
Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor 
forgotten self as he had used to be. 

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle 
from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from 
the half -thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not 
a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent 
poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse- 
door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the 
heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a 
freer passage to his tears. 

The spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his 
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man 
in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to 
look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in 
his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with 
wood. 

"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstacy. 
" It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One 
Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left 
here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like 
that. Poor boy! And Valentine," said Scrooge, "and 
his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his 
name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the 
gate of Damascus; don't you see him! And the Sultan's 
Groom turned upside down by the Genii: there he is 
upon his head! Serve him right. I'm glad of it. What 
business had he to be married to the Princess!" 

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his 
nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinay voice 
between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 25 

and excited face; would have been a surprise to his 
business friends in the city, indeed. 

'•'There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body 
and yellow tail, with a thing like lettuce growing out of 
the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he 
called him, when he came home again after sailing 
round the island. " Poor Robin Crusoe, where have 
you been, Robin Crusoe?" The man thought he was 
dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. 
There goes Friday, running for his life to the little 
creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!" 

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his 
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, 
" Poor boy!" and cried again. 

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his 
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes 
with his cuff: "but it's too late now." 

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit. 

" Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a 
boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I 
should like to have given him something; that's all." 

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: 
saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!" 

Scrooge's former self grew large at the words, and 
the room became a little darker and more dirty. The 
panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of 
plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were 
shown instead; but how all this was brought about, 
Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that 
it was quite correct: that everything had happened so; 
that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys 
had gone home for the jolly holidays. 

He was not reading now, but walking up and down 
despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and, with a 
mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards 
the door, 

It opened ; and a little girl, much younger than the 
boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his 
neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her 
"Dear, dear brother." 

" I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said 
the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down 
to laugh. " To bring you borne, home, home!" 

"Home, little Fan?"" returned the boy. 



26 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 



. . 



Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for 
good and all. Home, forever and ever. Father is so 
much kinder than he used to be, that home's like heaven. 
He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was 
going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once 
more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you 
should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're 
to be a man!" said the child, opening her eyes; "and 
are never to come back here; but first we're to be 
together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest 
time in all the world." 

' 'You are quite a woman, little Fan !" exclaimed the boy. 

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch 
his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood 
on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, 
in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, 
nothing loth to go, accompanied her. 

A terrible voice in the hall cried, " Bring down Master 
Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the 
schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge 
with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a 
dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He 
then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old 
well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where 
the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial 
globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he 
produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block 
of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments 
of those dainties to the young people: at the same time 
sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of " some- 
thing" to the postboy, who answered that he thanked 
the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had 
tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's 
trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, 
the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right 
willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the 
garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost 
and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens 
like spray. 

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might 
have withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large 
heart!" 

- "So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will 
not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!" 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 27 

"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I 
think, children." 

"One child," Scrooge returned. 

"True," said the Ghost. " Your nephew!" 

"Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered 
briefly, "Yes." 

Although they had but that moment left the school 
behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares 
of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and re- 
passed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for 
the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city 
were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the 
shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; but it 
was evening, and the streets were lighted up. 

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and 
asked Scrooge if he knew it. 

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!" 

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a 
Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he 
had been two inches taller he must have knocked his 
head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excite- 
ment: 

" Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig 
alive again!" 

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the 
clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed 
his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed 
all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevo- 
lence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, 
jovial voice: 

" Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!" 

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came 
briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice. 

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost. 
"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much 
attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!" 

" Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work 
to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! 
Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a 
sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack 
Robinson!" 

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at 
it! They charged into the street with the shutters — one, 
two, three — had 'em up in their places — four, five, six — 



28 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

barred 'era and pinned 'em — seven, eight, nine — and 
came back before you could have got to twelve, panting 
like race-horses. 

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from 
the high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away, 
my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, 
Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!" 

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have 
cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old 
Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every 
movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from 
public life for evermore; the floor was swept and 
watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon 
the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, 
and dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to 
see upon a winter's night. 

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to 
the lofty desk and made an orchestra of it, and tuned 
like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one 
vast, substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezzi- 
wigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young 
followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the 
young men and women employed in the business. In 
came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In 
came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the 
milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who 
w^as suspected of not having board enough from his 
master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next 
door but one, who was proved to have had her ears 
pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after an- 
other; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some 
awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all 
came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, 
twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again 
the other way; down the middle and up again; round 
and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; 
old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; 
new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got 
there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to 
help them ! When this result was brought about, old 
Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried 
out, "Well done I" and the fiddler plunged his hot face 
into a pot of porter especially provided for that purpose. 
But, scorning rest, upon his reappearance he instantly 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 29 

began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the 
other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a 
shutter, and he were a brand-new man resolved to beat 
him out of sight, or perish. 

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and 
more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, 
and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there 
was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince 
pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the 
evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the 
fiddler (an artful dog, mind ! The sort of man who knew 
his business better than you or I could have told it him!) 
struck up " Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fezziwig 
stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; 
with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three 
or four and twenty pair of partners; people who v/ere 
not to be trifled with: people who tvould dance, and had 
no notion of walking. 

But if they had been twice as many — ah, four times — 
old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so 
would Mrs. Fezziwig. ' As to her, she was worthy to be 
his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not 
high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive 
light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They 
shone in every part of the dance like moons. You 
couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would 
become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and 
Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance — advance 
a.nd retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsey, 
corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your 
place — Fezziwig "cut" — cut so deftly that he appeared 
to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again 
without a stagger. 

When the clock struck eleven this domestic ball broke 
up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on 
either side the door, and shaking hands with every per- 
son individually as he or she went out, wished him or 
her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired 
but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and 
thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left 
to their beds, which were under a counter in the back- 
shop. 

During the whole of this time Scrooge had acted like 
a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the 



30 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

scene, and with his former self. He corroborated every- 
thing, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and 
underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until 
now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick 
were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, 
and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, 
while the light upon its head burned very clear. 

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly 
folks so full of gratitude." 

" Small !" echoed Scrooge. 

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two appren- 
tices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of 
Fezziwig; and when he had done so, said: 

" Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of 
your mortal money : three or four, perhaps. Is that so 
much that he deserves this praise?" 

" It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, 
and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his lat- 
ter self. " It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to 
render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light 
or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power 
lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insig- 
nificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up; 
what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as 
if it cost a fortune." 

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. 

" What is the matter?" asked the Ghost. 

" Nothing particular," said Scrooge. 

" Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted. 

"No," said Scrooge. "No. I should like to be able 
to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all." 

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave 
utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again 
stood side by side in the open air. 

" My time grows short," observed the Spirit. " Quick!" 

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom 
he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For 
again Scrooge saw himself. Ha.was older now; a man 
in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and 
rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the 
signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, 
restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion 
that had taken root, and where the shadow of the grow- 
ing tree would fall. 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. - 

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young 
girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, 
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost 
of Christmas Past. 

"It matters little," she said, softly. " To you, very 
little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can 
cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have 
tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve." 

" What Idol has displaced you!" he rejoined. 

" A golden one." 

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he 
said. " There is nothing on which' it is so hard as pov- 
erty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with 
such severity as the pursuit of wealth!" 

" You fear the world too much," she answered, gently. 
"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being 
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen 
your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the 
master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?" 

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown 
so much wiser, what then! I am not changed towards 
you." 

She shook her head. 

"Ami?" 

" Our contract is an old one. It was made when we 
were both poor and content to be so, until, in good sea- 
son, we could improve our wordly fortune by our patient 
industry. You are changed. When it was made, you 
were another man." 

" I was a boy," he said impatiently. 

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what 
you are," she returned. "I am. That which promised 
happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with 
misery now that we are two. How often and how 
keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is 
enough that I have thought of it, and can release you." 

" Have I ever sought release?" 

" In words. No. Never." 

"In what, then?" 

" In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another 
atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In 
everything that made my love of any worth or value in 
your sight. If this had never been between us," said 
the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him, 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

" tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? 
Ah, no!" 

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, 
in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, " You 
think not." 

" I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she 
answered, "Heaven knows! When I have learned a 
Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it 
must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yes- 
terday, can even I believe that you would choose a dow- 
erless girl — you who, in your very confidence with her, 
weigh everything by Gain : or, choosing her, if for a 
moment you were false enough to your one guiding 
principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance 
and- regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. 
With a full heart, for the love of him you once were." 

He was about to speak; but, with her head turned from 
him, she resumed. 

"You may — the memory of what is past half makes 
me hope you will — have pain in this. A very, very brief 
time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, 
as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well 
that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have 
chosen!" 

She left him and they parted. 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, " show me no more! Conduct 
me home. Why do you delight to torture me?" 

" One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost. 

"No more!" cried Scrooge. " No more. I don't wish 
to see it. Show me no more!" 

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, 
and forced him to observe what happened next. 

They were in another scene and place; a room, not 
very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to 
the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that 
last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw 
her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. 
The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there 
were more children there* than Scrooge in his agitated 
state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd 
in the poem, they were not forty children conducting 
themselves like one,but every child was conducting itself 
like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond 
belief, but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 33 

mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it 
very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in 
the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most 
ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of 
them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! 
I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed 
that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the pre- 
cious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God 
bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her 
waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't 
have done it; I should have expected my arm to have 
grown round it for a punishment, and never come 
straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I 
own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, 
that she might have opened them; to have looked upon 
the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; 
to have let loose waves of her hair, an inch of which 
would be a keepsake beyond price; in short, I should 
have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence 
of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know 
its value. 

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such 
a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face 
and plundered dress was borne towards it in the centre 
of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the 
father, who came home attended by a man laden with 
Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and 
the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the 
defenceless porter! The scaling him, with chairs for 
ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown- 
paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him 
round the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in 
irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder and de- 
light with which the development of every package was 
received! The terrible announcement that the baby had 
been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his 
mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed 
a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The im- 
mense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and 
gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable 
alike. It is enough that, by degrees, the children and 
their emotions got out of the parlour, and, by one stair 
at a time, up to the top of the house, where they went 
to bed, and so subsided. 



34 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

* And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than 
ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter 
leaning f ondiy on him, sat down with her and her mother 
at his own fireside; and when he thought that such an- 
other creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, 
might have called him father, and been a spring-time in 
the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim. 
indeed. 

" Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a 
smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon. " 

"Who was it?" 

"Guess!" 

" How can I? Tut, don't I know," she added, in the 
same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge." 

" Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office- window; and 
as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I 
could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon 
the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite 
alone in the world, I do believe." 

" Spirit!" said Scrooge, in a broken voice, " remove me 
from this place." 

"I told you these were shadows of the things that 
have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they 
are, do not blame me!" 

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear 
it!" 

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked 
upon him with a face in which, in some strange way, 
there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, 
wrestled with it. 

" Leave me!" Take me back. Haunt me no longer!" 

In the struggle — if that can be called a struggle in 
which the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own 
part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary — 
Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and 
bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence 
over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sud- 
den action pressed it down upon its head. 

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher 
covered its whoLs form; but though Scrooge pressed it 
down with all nis force, he could not hide the light, 
which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon 
the ground. 

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 35 

by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in 
his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, 
in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel 
to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep. 



STAVE THREE. 

THE SECOND OP THE THREE SPIRITS. 

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, 
and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge 
had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon 
the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to con- 
sciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial 
purpose of holding a conference with the second mes- 
senger despatched to him through Jacob Marley's inter- 
vention. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably 
cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains 
this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one 
aside with his own hands, and lying down again, estab- 
lished a sharp look-out all round the bed. For he wished 
to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, 
and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made 
nervous. 

Gentlemen of the free and easy sort, who plume them- 
selves on being acquainted with a move or two, and 
being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide 
range of their capacity for adventure by observing that 
they are good for anything from pitclx-and-toss to man- 
slaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, 
there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of 
subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as 
hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe 
that he was ready for a good broad field of strange ap- 
pearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhi- 
noceros would have astonished him very much. 

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not 
by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, 
when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was 
taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten 
minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing 
came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core 



1 



36 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed 
upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, 
being only light, was more alarming than a dozen 
ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, 
or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that 
he might be at that very moment an interesting case of 
spontaneous combustion, without having the consola- 
tion of knowing it. At last, however, he began to 
think — as you or I would have thought at first; for it is 
always the person not in the predicament who knows 
what ought to have been done in it, and would unques- 
tionably have done it too — at last, I say, he began to 
think that the source and secret of this ghostly light 
might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further 
tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full pos- 
session of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his 
slippers to the door. 

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange 
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He 
obeyed. 

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. 
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The 
walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that 
it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which 
bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of 
holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so 
many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such 
a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that 
dull petrification of a hearth had never known in 
Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a 
winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a 
kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, 
brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths 
of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings, barrels of 
oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy 
oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and 
seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim 
with their delicious steam. In' easy state upon this couch 
there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glow- 
ing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it 
up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came 
peeping round the door. 

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and 
know me better, man!" 







A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 3? 

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this 
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and 
though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not 
like to meet them. 

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. 
" Look upon me!" 

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one sim- 
ple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. 
This garment hung so loosely on the figure that its capa- 
cious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or 
concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath 
the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on 
its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, 
set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown 
curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its spark- 
ling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained 
demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle 
was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it; and 
the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. 

" You have never seen the like of me before?" ex- 
claimed the Spirit. 

" Never," Scrooge made answer to it. 

" Have never walked forthwith the younger members 
of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my 
elder brothers born in these later years?" pursued the 
Phantom. 

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. " I am afraid 
I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?" 

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost. 

"A tremendous family to provide for," muttered 
Scrooge. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. 

" Spirit," said Scrooge, submissively, "conduct me 
where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, 
and I learned a lesson which is working now. To-night, 
if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it. " 

" Touch my robe!" 

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. 

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, 
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, pud- 
dings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did 
the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, 
and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, 
where (for the weather was severe) the people made a 



38 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

rough, but brisk and not unpleasant, kind of music, in 
scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their 
dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it 
was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping 
down into the road below, and splitting into artificial 
little snowstorms. 

The house fronts looked black enough, and the win- 
dows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet 
of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon 
the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in 
deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons; 
furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other hun- 
dreds of times where the great streets branched off; 
and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick 
yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and 
the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, 
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles de- 
scended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chim- 
neys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, 
and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. 
There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the 
town and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad 
that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun 
might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. 

For the people who were shovelling away on the 
house-tops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to 
one another from the parapets, and now and then ex- 
changing a facetious snowball — better-natured missile 
far than many a wordy jest— laughing heartily if it 
went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The 
poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' 
were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, 
pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waist- 
coats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and 
tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. 
There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish 
onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Span- 
ish Friars, and winking from, their shelves in wanton 
shyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced de- 
murely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears 
and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there 
were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' be- 
nevolence.to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's 
mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 39 

piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fra- 
grance, ancient walks amongst the woods, and pleasant 
shufflings ancle deep through withered leaves; there 
were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the 
yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great 
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating 
and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and 
eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set 
forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though mem- 
bers of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to 
know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, 
went gasping round and round their little world in slow 
and passionless excitement. 

The Grocers ! oh, the Grocers ! nearly closed, with per- 
haps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps 
such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales, descend- 
ing on the counter, made a merry sound, or that the 
twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the 
canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, 
or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were 
so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so 
plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the 
sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices 
so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with 
molten sugar, as to make the coldest lookers-on feel 
faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs 
were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed 
in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, 
or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas 
dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager 
in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up 
against each other at the door, crashing their wicker 
baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the coun- 
ter, and came running back to fetch them, and commit- 
ted hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour 
possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank 
and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fas- 
tened their aprons behind might have been their own, 
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas 
daws to peck at if they chose. 

But soon the steeples called good people all to church 
and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the 
streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. 
And at the same time there emerged from scores of by- 






40 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable peo- 
ple, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The 
sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the 
Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him 
in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their 
bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from 
his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, 
for once or twice when there were angry words between 
some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed 
a few drops of water on them from it, and their good- 
humour was restored directly. For they said it was a 
shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. Anct so it was! 
God love it, so it was! 

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; 
and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these 
dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed 
blotch of wet above each baker's oven; where the pave- 
ment smoked as if its stones were cooking too. 

" Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from 
your torch?" asked Scrooge. 

" There is. My own." 

" Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" 
asked Scrooge. 

" To any kindly given. To a poor one most." 

" Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge. 

" Because it needs it most." 

" Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, " I 
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about 
us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities 
of innocent enjoyment." 

" I!" cried the Spirit. 

" You would deprive them of their means of dining 
every seventh day, often the only day on which they can 
be said to dine at all," said Scrooge; " wouldn't you?" 

"I!" cried the Spirit. 

" You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" 
said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing. " 

"J seek!" exclaimed the Spirit. 

" Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your 
name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge. 

" There are some upon this earth of yours," returned 
the Spirit, " who lay claim to know us, and who do their 
deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, 
and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 41 

and all our kith and kin. as if they had never lived. 
Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, 
not us." 

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, 
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of 
the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost 
(which Scrooge had observed at the bakers), that not- 
withstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate 
himself to any place with ease; and that he stood be- 
neath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a super- 
natural creature as it was possible he could have done 
in any lofty hall. 

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in 
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own 
kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with 
all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; 
for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding 
to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit 
smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling 
with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! Bob 
had but fifteen "Bob" a week himself; he pocketed on 
Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and 
yet the ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four- 
roomed house! 

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed 
out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in rib- 
bons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for six- 
pence; and'ghe laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda 
Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; 
while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the 
saucepan of potatoes/and getting the corners of his mon- 
strous shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred 
upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his 
mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and 
yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And 
now two smaller Cratchits, bov and girl, came tearing 
in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelled 
the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in 
luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young 
Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master 
Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although 
his collar nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the 
slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the sauce- 
pan lid to be let out and peeled. 



42 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

" What has ever got your precious father, then?" said 
Mrs. Cratchit. "And V our brother, Tiny Tim! And 
Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an 
hour!" 

" Here's Martha, mother," said a girl appearing as she 
spoke. 

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young 
Cratchits. " Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!" 

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you 
are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and 
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious 
zeal. 

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied 
the girl, " and had to clear away this morning, mother!" 

"Well! never mind, so long as you are come," said 
Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, 
and have a warm, Lord bless ye!" 

" No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young 
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Mar- 
tha, hide!" 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the 
father, with at least three foot of comforter exclusive of 
the fringe hanging down before him; and his threadbare 
clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and 
Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore 
a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron 
frame ! 

" Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, 
looking round. 

" Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in 
his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all 
the way from church, and had come home rampant. 
"Not coming upon Christmas Day!" 

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were 
only in joke, so she came out prematurely from behind 
the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two 
young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into 
the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing 
in the copper. 

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, 
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had 
hugged his daughter to his heart's content. 

"As good as gold," said Bob, " and better. Somehow 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 43 

he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and 
thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told 
me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in 
the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be 
pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who 
made lame beggars walk, and blind men see." 

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, 
and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was 
growing strong and hearty. 

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and 
back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, 
escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the 
fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs — as if, poor 
fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby — 
compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and 
lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the 
hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous 
young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which 
they soon returned in high procession. 

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a 
goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, 
to which a black swan was a matter of course — and in 
truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. 
Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little 
saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the pota- 
toes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up 
the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hotplates; Bob took 
Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the 
two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not for- 
getting themselves, and mounting guard upon their 
posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they 
should shriek for goose before their turn came to be 
helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was 
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. 
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, 
prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, 
and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, 
one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and 
even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, 
beat on .the table with the handle of his knife, and 
feebly cried "Hurrah!" 

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't 
believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tender- 
ness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes 



44 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and 
mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole 
family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight 
(surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), 
they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had 
enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were 
steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now 
the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit 
left the room — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take 
the pudding up and bring it in. 

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it 
should break in turning out! Suppose somebody 
should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and 
stolen it, while they were merry with the goose — a sup- 
position at which the two young Cratchits became livid! 
All sorts of horrors were supposed. 

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out 
of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was 
the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry- 
cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next 
to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. 
Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the 
pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, 
blazing in half or half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, 
and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. 

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Oatchit said, and 
calmly, too, that he regarded it as the greatest success 
achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. 
Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she 
would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of 
flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but 
nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for 
a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. 
Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, 
the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound 
in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples 
and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full 
of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family 
drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a 
circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow 
stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers and a 
custard-cup without a handle. 

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 45 

as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it 
out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire 
sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: 

" A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless 
us!" 

Which all the family re-echoed. 

" God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. 

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little 
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he 
loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and 
dreaded that he might be taken from him. 

"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never 
felt before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live." 

" I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, " in the poor 
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, care- 
fully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by 
the Future the child will die." 

" No, no," said Scrooge. " Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he 
will be spared." 

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, 
none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find 
him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had bet- 
ter do it, and decrease the surplus population." 

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted 
by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and 
grief. 

"Man," said the Ghost, " if man you be in heart, not 
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have dis- 
covered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you 
decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It 
may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worth- 
less and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's 
child. Oh, God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronounc- 
ing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in 
the dust!" 

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling 
cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them 
speedily, on hearing his own name. 

" Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; " I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, 
the Founder of the Feast!" 

" The Founder of the Feast, indeed!" cried Mrs.Cratchit, 
reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a 
piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a 
good appetite for it." 



46 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 



ii 



My dear/' said Bob; " the children! Christmas Day." 

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure/' said she, 
" on which one drinks the health of such an odious, 
stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know 
he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor 
fellow?" 

"My dear/' was Bob's mild answer. "Christmas 
Day." 

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," 
said Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A 
merry Christmas and a happy New Year! He'll be very 
merry and very happy, I have no doubt!" 

The children drank the toast after her. It was the 
first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. 
Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence 
for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The men- 
tion of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which 
was not dispelled for full five minutes. 

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier 
than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful 
being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a 
situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring 
in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two 
young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of 
Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked 
thoughtfully at the fire from between his collar, as if 
he were deliberating what particular investments he 
should favour when he came into the receipt of that be- 
wildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice 
at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she 
had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, 
and how she meant to lie a-bed to-morrow morning for 
a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed 
at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord 
some days before, and how the lord " was much about 
as tall as Peter;" at which Peter pulled up his collar so 
high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had 
been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug 
went round and round; and by-the-bye they had a song, 
about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, 
who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well 
indeed. 

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were 
not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; 



! 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 47 

their shoes were far from being water-proof; their 
clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and 
very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they 
were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and 
contented with the time; and when they faded, and 
looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the 
Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, 
and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. 

By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty 
heavily; and, as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the 
streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, 
parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, 
the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a 
cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through 
before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn 
to shut out cold and darkness. There, all the children 
of the house were running out into the snow to meet 
their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, 
and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shad- 
ows on the window-blinds of guests assembling; and 
there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur- 
booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to 
some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single 
man who saw them enter — artful witches, well they 
knew it — in a glow. 

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people 
on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have 
thought that no one was at home to give them welcome 
when they got there, instead of every house expecting 
company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. 
Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared 
its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and 
floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright 
and harmless mirth on everything within its reach ! The 
very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky 
street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend 
the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit 
passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had 
any company but Christmas! 

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, 
they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where mon- 
strous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though 
it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread 
itself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but 



48 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but 
moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the 
west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which 
glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen 
eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost i 
the thick gloom of darkest night. 

" What place is this?" asked Scrooge. 

" A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels 
of the earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. 
See!" 

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly 
they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of 
mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assem- 
bled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, 
with their children, and their children's children, and 
another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in 
their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that sel- 
dom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren 
waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been 
a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to 
time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they 
raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and 
loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank 
again. 

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold 
his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither? 
Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, 
he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, 
behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thun- 
dering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged 
among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely 
tried to undermine the earth. 

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league 
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and 
dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary 
lighthouse. Great heaps of sea- weed clung to its base, 
and storm-birds — born of the wind one might suppose, 
as sea- weed of the water — rose, and fell about it, like 
the waves they skimmed. 

But even here, two men who watched the light had 
made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone 
wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. 
Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which 
they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in 








A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 49 



their can of grog; and one of them — the elder too, with 
his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as 
the figure-head of an old ship might be — struck up a 
sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. 

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving 
sea — on, on — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, 
from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood be- 
side the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, 
the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in 
their several stations ; but every man among them 
hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, 
or spoke below his breath to his companion of some by- 
gone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging 
to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, 
good or bad, had had a kinder word for one another on 
that day than on any day in the year; and had shared 
to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered 
those he cared for at a distance, and had known that 
they delighted to remember him. 

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to 
the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn 
thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness 
over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as 
profound as Death : it was a great surprise to Scrooge, 
while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a 
much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his 
nephew's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming 
room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and 
looking at that same nephew with approving affability! 

"Ha! ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!' 7 

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to 
know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's 
nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. 
Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaint- 
ance. 

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, 
that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, 
there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious 
as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew 
laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, 
and twisting his face into the most extravagant contor- 
tions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily 
as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit be- 
hindhand, roared out lustily. 
5 



50 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" 

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" 
cried Scrooge's nephew. " He believed it, too!" 

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece, 
indignantly. Bless those women! they never do any- 
thing by halves. They are always in earnest. 

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dim- 
pled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, 
that seemed made to be kissed — as no doubt it was ; 
all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted 
into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest 
pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. 
Altogether she was what you would have called provok- 
ing, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly sat- 
isfactory. 

" He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, 
"that's the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. 
However, his offences carry their own punishment, and 
I have nothing to say against him." 

"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's 
niece. "At least you always tell me so." 

"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's nephew. 
" His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good 
with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. 
He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking — ha, ha, ha! — that 
he is ever going to benefit Us with it." 

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's 
niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, 
expressed the same opinion. 

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry 
for him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who 
suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he 
takes it into his head to dislike us, and he wonit come 
and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't 
lose much of a dinner." 

" Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," inter- 
rupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, 
and they must be allowed to have been competent 
judges, because they had just had dinner; and with the 
dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by 
lamplight. 

"Well! I am very glad to hear it." said Scrooge's 
nephew, " because I haven't any great faith in these 
young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?" 









A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 51 

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's 
niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a 
wretched outcast, who had no right to express an 
opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's 
sister — the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one 
with the roses — blushed. 

"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her 
hands. " He never finishes what he begins to say! He 
is such a ridiculous fellow!" 

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it 
was impossible to keep the infection off; though the 
plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; 
his example was unanimously followed. 

" I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, 
"that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and 
not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses 
some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. 
I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can 
find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, 
or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same 
chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity 
him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't 
help thinking better of it — I defy him — if he finds me 
going there, in good temper, year after year, and say- 
ing, " Uncle Scrooge, how are you?" If it only puts him 
in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's 
something; and I think I shook him, yesterday." 

It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his 
shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, 
and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they 
laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merri- 
ment, and passed the bottle, joyously. 

After tea, they had some music. For they were a 
musical family, and knew what they were about, when 
they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially 
Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good 
one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or 
get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well 
upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple 
little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it 
in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child 
who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he 
had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas* Past. 
When this strain of music sounded, all the things that 



52 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

the Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he soft- 
ened more and more; and thought that if he could have 
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated 
the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his 
own bands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that 
buried Jacob Marley. 

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. 
After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be 
children sometimes, and never better than at Christ- 
mas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. 
Stop! There was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of 
course there was. And I no more believe Topper was 
really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My 
opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and 
Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas 
Present knew it. The way he went after that plump 
sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity 
of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tum- 
bling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, 
smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she 
went, there went he! He always knew where the 
plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. 
If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) 
on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavour- 
ing to seize you, which would have been an affront to 
your understanding, and would instantly have sidled 
off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried 
out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when 
at last he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken 
rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her 
into a corner whence there was no escape; then his con- 
duct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to 
know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch 
her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her 
identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and 
a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! 
No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another 
blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential 
together, behind the curtains. 

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff 
party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and 
a footstool, in a snug corner where the Ghost and 
Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the 
forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 53 

letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, 
When, and Where, she was very great, and, to the secret 
joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow; though 
they w r ere sharp girls too, as Topper could have told 
you. There might have been twenty people there, young 
and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, 
wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was 
going on that his voice made no sound in their ears, he 
sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very 
often guessed right, too; for the sharpest needle, best 
Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not 
sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head 
to be. 

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this 
mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he 
begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests 
departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done. 

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half 
hour, Spirit, only one!" 

It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's 
nephew had to think of something, and the rest must 
find out what; he only answering to their questions yes 
or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to 
which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was 
thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagree- 
able animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled 
and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and 
lived in London, and walked about the streets, and 
wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and 
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a 
market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a 
bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. 
At every fresh question that was put to him, this 
nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so 
inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off 
the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling 
into a similar state, cried out: 

" I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know 
what it is!" 

"What is it?" cried Fred. 

"It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!" 

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the uni- 
versal sentiment, though some objected that the reply 
to " Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch 



54 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have di- 
verted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they 
had ever had any tendency that way. 

"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am 
sure," said Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to 
drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wino 
ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, 'Uncle 
Scrooge!' " 

"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried. 

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the 
old man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. " He 
wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, neverthe- 
less. Uncle Scrooge!" 

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and 
light of heart, that he would have pledged the uncon- 
scious company in return, and thanked them in an 
inaudible speech if the Ghost had given him time. But 
the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last w^ord 
spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again 
upon their travels. 

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes 
they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit 
stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on for- 
eign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling 
men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by 
poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital and 
jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his 
little brief authority had not made fast the door, and 
barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught 
Scrooge his precepts. 

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but 
Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas 
Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of 
time they passed together. It was strange, too, that 
while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, 
the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had 
observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they 
left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at 
the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he 
noticed that his hair was grey. 

"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge. 

"My life upon this globe is very brief," replied the 
Ghost. " It ends to-night." 

"To-night!" cried Scrooge. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 55 

" To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing 
near." 

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past 
eleven at that moment. 

" Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said 
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I 
see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, 
protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?" 

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," 
was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here." 

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; 
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They 
knelt dow T n at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its 
garment. 

"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" ex- 
claimed the Ghost. 

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, 
scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. 
Where graceful youth should have filled their features 
out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale 
and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and 
twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where 
angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and 
glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no 
perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the 
mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so 
horrible and dread. 

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown 
to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine chil- 
dren, but the words choked themselves, rather than be 
parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. 

" Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more. 

" They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon 
them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their 
fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. 
Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most 
of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written 
which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" 
cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 
' Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your fac- 
tious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the 
end!" 

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge. 

"Are there no prisons!" said the Spirit, turning on 



56 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

him for the last time with his own words. " Are there 
no workhouses?" 

The bell struck twelve. 

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it 
not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remem- 
bered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up 
his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, 
coming like a mist along the ground towards him. 



STAVE FOUR. 

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS. 

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. 
When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his 
knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit 
moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. 

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which con- 
cealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it 
visible, save one outstretched hand. But for this it 
would have been difficult to detach its figure from the 
night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was 
surrounded. 

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside 
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a 
solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither 
spoke nor moved. 

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet 
To Come?" said Scrooge. 

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its 
hand. 

"You are about to show me shadows of the things 
that have not happened, but will happen in the time be- 
fore us," Scrooge pursued. " Is that so, Spirit?" 

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for 
an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its 
head. That was the only answer he received. 

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, 
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs 
trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly 
stand when he prepared to follow it". The Spirit paused 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 57 

a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him 
time to recover. 

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him 
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the 
dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed 
upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the 
utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one 
great heap of black. 

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you 
more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your 
purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be 
another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear 
your company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will 
you not speak to me?" 

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight 
before them. 

"'Lead on!" said Scrooge. "'Lead on! The night is 
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. 
Lead on, Spirit!" 

The phantom moved away as it had come towards him. 
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore 
him up, he thought, and carried him along. 

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city 
rather seemed to spring up about them, and compass them 
of its own act. But there they were in the heart of it; on 
'Change amongst the merchants; who hurried up and 
down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and con- 
versed in groups, and looked at their watches, and 
trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so 
forth, as Scrooge had seen them often. 

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business 
men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, 
Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. 

" No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, " I 
don't know much about it either way. I only know he's 
dead." 

"When did he die?" inquired another. 
♦ "Last night, I believe." 

" Wny, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, 
taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large 
snuff box. " I thought he'd never die." 

7 God knows," said the first.with a yawn. 
What has he done with his money?" asked a red- 
faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the 



58 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey- 
cock. 

" I haven't heard/' said the man with the large chin, 
yawning again. " Left it to his company, perhaps. He 
hasn't left it to me. That's all I know." 

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. 

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the 
same speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of any- 
body to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and vol- 
unteer?" 

" I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed 
the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I 
must be fed, if I make one." 

Another laugh. 

"Well, I am #he most disinterested among you, after 
all," said the first speaker, "for I never wear black 
gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if 
anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not 
at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for 
we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, 
bye!" 

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with 
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards 
the Spirit for an explanation. 

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed 
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, think- 
ing that the explanation might lie here. 

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men 
of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He 
had made a point always of standing well in their es- 
teem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a 
business point of view. 

" How are you?" said one. 

"How are you?" returned the other. 

" Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own 
at last, hey?" 

" So I am told," returned the second. " Cold, isn't it!" 

"Seasonable for Christmas time. You are not a 
skater, I suppose?" 

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good-morning!" 

Not another word. That was their meeting, their con- 
versation, and their parting. * 

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the 
Spirit should attach importance to conversations appar- 



! | I 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 59 

entlyso trivial; but feeling assured that they must have 
some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it 
was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to 
have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, 
for that was Past,, and this Ghost's province was the 
Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately 
connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. 
But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied 
they had some latent moral for his own improvement, 
he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and 
everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow 
of himself when it appeared. For he had an expecta- 
tion that the conduct of his future self would give him 
the clue he missed, and would render the solution of 
these riddles easy. 

He looked about in that very place for his own image: 
but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and 
though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for 
being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the 
multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave 
him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving 
in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he 
saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this. 

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with 
its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from 
his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the 
hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the 
Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him 
shudder, and feel very cold. 

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure- 
part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated 
before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad 
repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and 
houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slip- 
shod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cess- 
pools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and 
life, upon the straggling streets; and tjie whole quarter 
reeked with crime, with filth and misery. 

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low- 
browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where 
iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were 
bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of 
rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, 
and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would 



60 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of 
unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres 
of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a 
charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired 
rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened 
himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtain- 
ing of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line: and 
smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. 

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of 
this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk 
into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when 
another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she 
was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was 
no less startled by the sight of them, than they had been 
upon the recognition of each other. After a short period 
of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the 
pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. 

" Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she 
who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be 
the second: and let the undertaker's man alone to be 
the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we 
haven't all three met here without meaning it!" 

"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old 
Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. " Come into 
the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you 
know; and the other two ain't strangers. Stop till I 
shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There 
an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own 
hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such old bones 
here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable to our call- 
ing, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come 
into the parlour." 

The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. 
The old man raked the fire together with an old stair- 
rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was 
night) with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth 
again. 

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken 
threw her bundle on the floor and sat down in a flaunt- 
ing manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, 
and looking with a bold defiance at the other two. 

"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said 
the woman. " Every person has a right to take care of 
themselves. He always did!" 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 61 

That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man 



more so." 



" Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, 
woman, who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes 
in each other's coats, I suppose?" 

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 
" We should hope not." 

" Very well, then !" cried the woman. " That's enough. 
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? 
Not a dead man, I suppose." 

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. 

" If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked 
old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural 
in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody 
to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead 
of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself." 

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. 
Dilber. " It's a judgment on him." 

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the 
woman; "and it should have been, you may depend 
upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. 
Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value 
of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, 
nor afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty well that 
we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. 
It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe." 

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of 
this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach 
first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A 
seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve buttons, and 
a brooch of no great value, were all. They were sev- 
erally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked 
the sums he was disposed to give for each upon the 
wall, and added them up into a total when he found 
that there was nothing more to come. 

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't 
give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing 
it. Who's next?" 

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little 
wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a 
pair of sugar tongs, and a few boots. Her account was 
stated on the wall in the same manner. 

" I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of 
mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. 



62 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

"That's your account. If you ask me for another 
penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being 
so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown." 

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first 
woman. 

Joe went down on his knees for the greater con- 
venience of opening it, and having unfastened a great 
many knots, dragged out a large heavy roll of some 
dark stuff. 

" What do you call this?" said Joe.. " Bed-curtains!" 

"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning 
forward on her crossed arms. " Bed-curtains!" 

"You don't mean to say you took 'em down rings 
and all, with him lying there?" said Joe. 

" Yes, I do," replied the woman. " Why not?" 

"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, 
" and you'll certainly do it." 

" I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get any- 
thing in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a 
man as He was, I promise you, Joe," returned the 
woman,coolly. " Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, 
now." 

" His blankets?" asked Joe. 

"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. 
" He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say." 

" I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" 
said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. 

"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. 
" I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him 
for such things, if he did. Ah! You may look through 
that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole 
in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and 
a fine one, too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been 
for me." 

" What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe. 

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied 
the woman with a laugh. " Somebody was fool enough 
to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good 
enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for any- 
thing. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't 
look uglier than he did in that one." 

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they 
sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light 
afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 63 

detestation and disgust which could hardly have been 
greater, though they had been obscene demons, market- 
ing the corpse itself. 

"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, 
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their 
several gains upon the ground. " This is the end of it, 
you see? He frightened every one away from him when 
he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, 
ha!" 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. 
" I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be 
my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful 
Heaven, what is this!" 

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and 
now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: 
on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something 
covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced it- 
self in awful language. 

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with 
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedi- 
ence to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of 
room it was. A pale light rising in the outer air, fell 
straight upon the bed: and on it, plundered and bereft, 
unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this 
man. 

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady 
hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so care- 
lessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the 
motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have dis- 
closed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would 
be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to 
withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side. 

Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar 
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy 
command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, 
revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one 
hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. 
It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when 
released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but 
that the hand teas open, generous, and true; the heart 
brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, 
Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from 
the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! 

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, 



G4 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. 
He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what 
would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-deal- 
ing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich 
end, truly! 

He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a 
woman, or a child to say he was kind to me in this or 
that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be 
kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there 
was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. 
What they wanted in the room of death, and why they 
were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to 
think. 

" Spirit !" he said, " this is a fearful place. In leaving 
it I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go !" 

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the 
head. 

" I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would 
do it if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I 
have not the power." 

Again it seemed to look upon him. 

" If there is any person in the town who feels emo- 
tion caused by this man's death," said Scrooge, quite 
agonised, "show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech 
you !" 

The phantom spread its dark robe before him for a 
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a 
room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. 

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eager- 
ness; for she walked up and down the room, started at 
every sound, looked out from the window, glanced at 
the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; 
and could hardly bear the voices of her children in 
their play. 

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She 
hurried to the door and met her husband; a man whose 
face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. 
There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of 
serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he 
struggled to repress. 

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding 
for him by the fire, and when she asked him faintly 
what news (which was not until after a long silence), he 
appeared embarrassed how to answer. 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Co 

" Is it good/' she said, " or bad ?"— to help him. 

"Bad," he answered. 

" We are quite ruined ?" 

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline." 

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing- 
is past hope, if such a miracle has happened." 

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is 
dead." 

She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke 
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and 
she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgive- 
ness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was 
the emotion of her heart. 

" What the half -drunken woman, whom I told you of 
last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and 
obtain a week's delay; and what I thought was a mere 
excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. 
He was not only very ill, but dying, then." 

" To whom will our debt be transferred?" 

" I don't know. But before that time we shall be 
ready with the money; and even though we were not, it 
would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a cred- 
itor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light 
hearts, Caroline!" 

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were 
lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered 
round to hear what they so little understood, were 
brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's 
death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, 
caused by the event, was one of pleasure. 

" Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," 
said Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we 
left just now, will be forever present to me." 

The Ghost conducted him through several streets 
familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge 
looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was 
he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; 
the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother 
and the children seated round the fire. 

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as 
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at 
Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and 
her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they 
were very quiet! 
6 



66 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

" 'And he took a child, and set him in the midst of 
them.' " 

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not 
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as 
he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not 
go on? 

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her 
hand up to her face. 

" The colour hurts my eyes," she said. 

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! 

" They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. " It 
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show 
weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the 
world. It must be near his time." 

"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his 
book. "But I think he has walked a little slower than 
he used, these few last evenings, mother." 

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in 
a steacly, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: 

"I have known him walk with — I have known him 
walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast, in- 
deed." 

"And so have I," cried Peter. " Often." 

" And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all. 

"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent . 
upon her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was 
no trouble; no trouble. And there is your father at the 
door!" 

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his com- 
forter — he had need of it, poor fellow — came in. His tea 
was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who 
should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratch- 
its got upon his knees and laid, each child, a little cheek 
against his face, as if they said "Don't mind it, father." 
" Don't be grieved!" 

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleas- 
antly to all the family. He looked at the work upon 
the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. 
Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before 
Sunday, he said. 

"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his 
wife. Il 

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could 
have gone. It would have done you good to see how 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 67 

green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised 
him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, 
little child!" cried Bob. " My little child!" 

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If 
he could have helped it, he and his child would have 
been farther apart perhaps than they were. 

He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room 
above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with 
Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, 
and there were signs of some one having been there, 
lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had 
thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the lit- 
tle face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and 
went down again quite happy. 

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and 
mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordi- 
nary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had 
scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the 
street that day, and seeing that he looked a little — 
"just a little down, you know," said Bob, inquired what 
had happened to distress him. "On which," said Bob, 
"for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever 
heard, I told him. ' I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. 
Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good 
wife.' By-the-bye, how he ever knew that I don't 
know." 

"Knew what, my dear?" 

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob. 

"Everybody knows that!" said Peter. 

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope 
they do. ' Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. 
If I can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving 
me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' 
Now, it wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything 
he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind 
way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as 
if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us." 

"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit. 

" You would be sure of it, my dear," returned Bob, 
" if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all 
surprised — mark what I say! — if he got Peter a better 
situation." 

' Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit. 
And then," cried one of the girls, " Peter will be 



a 



68 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

keeping company with some one, and setting up for 
himself." 

" Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning. 

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these 
days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. 
But however and whenever we part from one another, 
I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny 
Tim — shall we — or this first parting that there was 
among us?" 

" Never, father!" cried they all. 

"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that 
when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; 
although he was a little, little child; we shall not quar- 
rel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in 
doing it." 

"No, never, father!" they all cried again. 

"I am very happy," said little Bob; "I am very 
happy!" 

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, 
the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and him- 
self shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish 
essence was from God! 

" Spectre," said Scrooge, " something informs me that 
our parting moment is at hand. I know it. but I know 
not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw 
lying dead?" 

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, 
as before — though at a different time, he thought: in- 
deed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save 
that they were in the Future — into the resorts of business 
men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit 
did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to 
the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to 
tarry for a moment. 

" This Court," said Scrooge, " through which we hurry 
now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been 
for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold 
what I shall be in days to come." 

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. 

" The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. " Why do 
you point away?" 

The inexorable finger underwent no change. 

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and 
looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The fur- 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 69 

niture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was 
not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. 

He joined it once again, and wondering why and 
whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached 
an iron gate. He paused to look around before entering. 

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose 
name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. 
It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun 
by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, 
not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with 
repleted appetite. A worthy place! 

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down 
to One. He advanced toward it trembling. The Phan- 
tom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he 
saw new meaning in its solemn shape. 

" Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you 
point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are 
these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are 
they shadows of the things that May be, only?" 

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which 
it stood. 

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, 
if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. " But 
if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. 
Say it is thus with what you show me!" 

The Spirit was immovable as ever. 

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and 
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected 
grave his own name, "Ebenezer Scrooge." 

"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon 
his knees. 

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back 
again. 

"No, Spirit! Oh, no, no!" 

The finger still was there. 

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at his robe, "hear 
me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I 
must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me 
this, if I am past all hope!" 

For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground 
he fell before it: " Your nature intercedes for me, and 
pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these 
shadows you have shown me by" an altered life?" 



70 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

The kind hand trembled. 

" I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep 
it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and 
the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within 
me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. 
Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this 
stone!" 

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought 
to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and 
detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. 

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate 
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood 
and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down 
into a bedpost. 



STAVE FIVE. 

THE END OF IT. 

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his 
own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, 
the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! 

" I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" 
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "'The 
Spirits of all three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob 
Marley ! Heaven, and the Christmas time be praised for 
this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!" 

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good in- 
tentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to 
his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict 
with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears. 

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one 
of his bed curtains in his arms; "they are not torn down, 
rings and all. They are here — I am here — the shadows 
of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. 
They will be. I know they will!" 

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; 
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, 
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to 
every kind of extravagance. 

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing 
and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect 
Laocoon of himself with his stockings. " I am as light 



. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 71 



as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry 
as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A 
merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to 
all the world ! Hallo here ! Whoop ! Hallo !" 

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now 
standing there, perfectly winded. 

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried 
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fire- 
place. " There's the door by which the Ghost of Jacob 
Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of 
Christmas Present sat! There's the window where I 
saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, 
it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!" 

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so 
many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious 
laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant 
laughs ! 

"I don't know what day of the month it is," said 
Scrooge. " I don't know how long I have been among 
the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. 
Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo ! 
Whoop! Hallo here!" 

He was checked in his transports by the churches 
ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, 
clash, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; 
hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious! 

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his 
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, 
cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sun- 
light; heavenly sky: sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, 
glorious. Glorious ! 

"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to 
a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to 
look about him. 

" Ehf returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. 

" What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge. 

"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day." 

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I 
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one 
night. They can do anything they like. Of course 
they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!" 

" Hallo!" returned the boy. 

" Do you know the Poulterer's in the next street but 
one, at the corner?" Scrooge inquired. 



72 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

" I should hope I did/' replied the lad. 

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable 
boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Tur- 
key that was hanging up there? — Not the little prize 
Turkey: the big one?" 

" What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy. 

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a 
pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!" 

" It's hanging there now," replied the boy. 

" Is it?" said Scrooge. " Go and buy it." 

" Walk-er/" exclaimed the boy. 

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and 
buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give 
them the directions where to take it. Come back with 
the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with 
him in less than five minutes, and I'll give you half-a- 
crown!" 

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a 
steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off 
half so fast. 

" I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's," whispered Scrooge, 
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He 
shan't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny 
Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it 
to Bob's will be!" 

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a 
steady one; but write it he did, somehow, and went 
down-stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming 
of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his 
arrival, the knocker caught his eye. 

" I shall love it as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, pat- 
ting it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it be- 
fore. What an honest expression it has in its face! It's 
a wonderful knocker! Here's the Turkey. Hallo! 
Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!" 

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his 
legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in 
a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax. 

" Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town," 
said Scrooge. " You must have a cab." 

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle 
with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle 
with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with 
which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. ?3 

by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his 
chair again, and chuckled till he cried. 

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand con- 
tinued to shake very much; and shaving requires atten- 
tion, even when you don't dance while you are at it. 
But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have 
put a piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite 
satisfied. 

He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got 
out into the streets. The people were by this time pour- 
ing forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of 
Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind 
him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. 
He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three 
or four good-humoured fellows said "Good-morning, 
sir! A merry Christmas to you!" And Scrooge said 
often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had 
ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. 

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he 
beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his 
counting-house the day before, and said "Scrooge and 
Marley's, I believe?" It sent a pang across his heart to 
think how this old gentleman would look upon him 
when they met; but he knew what path lay straight be- 
fore him, and he took it. 

"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and 
taking the old gentleman by both hands. "How do 
you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very 
kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!" 

"Mr. Scrooge?" 

"Yes," said Scrooge. " That is my name, and I fear 
it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your 
pardon. And will you have the goodness — " here Scrooge 
whispered in his ear. 

" Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath 
were taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you 
serious?" 

" If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. 
A great many back payments are included in it, I assure 
you. Will you do me that favour?" 

"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with 
him. " I don't know what to say to such munifi — " 

" Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. 
" Come and see me. Will you come and see me?" 



74 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

" I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear 
he meant to do it. 

" Thank'ee," said Scrooge. " I am much obliged to 
you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!" 

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and 
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the 
children on the head, and questioned beggars, and 
looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the 
windows; and found that everything could yield him 
pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk — that 
anything — could give him so much happiness. In the 
afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house. 

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the 
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and 
did it: 

" Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to 
the girl. "Nice girl! Very." 

"Yes, sir." 

" Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge. 

" He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. 
I'll show you up-stairs, if you please." 

"Thank'ee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his 
hand already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, 
my dear." 

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in round the 
door. They were looking at the table (which was spread 
out in great array); for these young housekeepers are 
always nervous on such points, and like to see that 
everything is right. 

" Fred!" said Scrooge. 

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! 
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sit- 
ting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't 
have done it, on any account. 

" Why, bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?" 

" It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. 
Will you let me in, Fred?" 

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. 
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be 
heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Top- 
per when he came. So did the plump sister, when she 
came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful 
party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won- 
der-ful happiness! 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 75 

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he 
was early there. If he could only be there first, and 
catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he 
had set his heart upon. 

And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No 
Bob. A quarter-past. No Bob. He was full eighteen 
minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with 
his door wide open, that he might see him come into the 
tank. 

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his com- 
forter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away 
with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine 
o'clock. 

• " Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice as 
near as he could feign it. " What do you mean by com- 
ing here at this time of day?" 

"•I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. " I am behind my 
time." 

"You are!" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you 
are. Step this way, sir, if you please." 

" It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing 
from the tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was mak- 
ing rather merry yesterday, sir." 

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. 
" I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. 
And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, 
and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he stag- 
gered back into the tank again, "and therefore I am 
about to raise your salary!" 

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He 
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with 
it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for 
help and a strait-waistcoat. 

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an 
earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped 
him on the back. " A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good 
fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll 
raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your strug- 
gling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very 
afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, 
Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle 
before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!" 

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and 
infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he 



76 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

was a second father. He became as good a friend, as 
good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city 
knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in 
the good old world. Some people laughed to see the 
alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded 
them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing 
ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some 
people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; 
and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, 
he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up 
their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive 
forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite 
enough for him. 

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived 
upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; 
and it was always said of him, that he knew how to 
keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the 
knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! 
And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every 
One! 




THE CHIMES. 



GOBLIN STORY OF SOME BELLS THAT 
RANG AN OLD YEAR OUT AND 
A NEW YEAR IN. 



FIRST QUARTER. 

There are not many people — and as it is desirable that 
a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual 
understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed 
that I confine this observation neither to young people 
nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of 
people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, 
or already growing down again — there are not, I say, 
many people who would care to sleep in a church. I 
don't mean at sermon-time in warm weather (when the 
thing has actually been done, once or twice), but in the 
night, and alone. A great multitude of persons will be 
violently astonished, I know, by this position, in the 
broad, bold Day. But it applies to Night. It must be 
argued by night. And I will undertake to maintain it 
successfully on any gusty winter's night appointed for 
the purpose, with any one opponent chosen from the 
rest, who will meet me singly in an old churchyard, be- 
fore an old church door; and will previously empower 
me to lock him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until 
morning. 

For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering 
round and round a building of that sort, and moaning as 
it goes; and of trying, with its unseen hand, the win- 
dows and the doors; and seeking out some crevices by 
which to enter. And when it has got in; as one not 

77 






78 THE CHIMES. 

finding what it seeks, whatever that may be, it wails 
and howls to issue forth again; and not content with 
stalking through the isles, and gliding round and round 
the pillars, and tempting the deep organ, soars up to the 
roof, and strives to rend the rafters: then flings itself 
despairingly upon the stones below, and passes, mutter- 
ing, into the vaults. Anon, it comes up stealthily, and 
creeps along the walls, seeming to read, in whispers, the 
Inscriptions sacred to the Dead. At some of these, it 
breaks out shrilly, as with laughter; and at others, 
moans and cries as if it were lamenting. It has a 
ghostly sound, too, lingering within the altar; where it 
seems to chaunt in its wild way, of Wrong and Murder 
done, and false Gods worshipped, in defiance of the 
Tables of the Law, which look so fair and smooth, but 
are so flawed and broken. Ugh! Heaven preserve us, 
sitting snugly round the fire! It has an awful voice, 
that wind at Midnight, singing in a church! 

But, high up in the steeple! There the foul blast roars 
and whistles! High up in the steeple, where it is free to 
come and go through many an airy arch and loophole, 
and to twist and twine itself about the giddy stair, and 
twirl the groaning weathercock, and make the very 
tower shake and shiver! High up in the steeple, where 
the belfry is, and iron rails are ragged with rust, and 
sheets of lead and copper, shrivelled by the changing 
weather, crackle and heave beneath the unaccustomed 
tread; and birds stuff shabby nests into corners of old 
oaken joists and beams; and dust grows old and grey; 
and speckled spiders, indolent and fat with long security, 
swing idly to and fro in the vibration of the bells, and 
never loose their hold upon their thread-spun castles in 
the air, or climb up sailor-like in quick alarm, or drop 
upon the ground and ply a score of nimble legs to save 
one's life! High up in the steeple of an old church, far 
above the light and murmur of the town, and far below 
the flying clouds that shadow it, is the wild and dreary 
place at night: and high up in the steeple of an old 
church, dwelt the Chimes I tell of. 

They were old Chimes, trust me. Centuries ago, these 
Bells had been baptised by bishops: so many centuries 
ago, that the register of their baptism was lost long, 
long before the memory of man, and no one knew their 
names. They had had their Godfathers and Godmoth- 



F I 



THE CHIMES. 79 

ers, these Bells (for my own part, by the way, I would 
rather incur the responsibility of being Godfather to a 
Bell than a Boy), and had had their silver mugs, no 
doubt, besides. But Time had mowed down their spon- 
sors, and Henry the Eighth had melted down their 
mugs; and they now hung, nameless and mugless, in 
the church tower. 

Not speechless, though. Far from it. They had 
clear, loud, lusty, sounding voices, had these Bells; and 
far and wide they might be heard upon the wind. Much 
too sturdy chimes were they, to be dependent on the 
pleasure of the wind, moreover; for, fighting gallantly 
against it when it took an adverse whim, they would 
pour their cheerful notes into a listening ear right 
royally; and bent on being heard, on stormy nights, by 
some poor mother watching a sick child, or some lone 
wife whose husband was at sea, they had been some- 
times known to beat a blustering Nor'wester; aye, " all 
to fits," as Toby Veck said; for, though they chose to 
call him Trotty Veck, his name was Toby, and nobody 
could make it anything else, either (except Tobias), 
without a special act of Parliament; he having been as 
lawfully christened in his day as the Bells had been in 
theirs, though with not quite so much of solemnity or 
public rejoicing. 

For my part, I confess myself of Toby Veck's belief, 
for I am sure he had opportunities enough of forming a 
correct one. And whatever Toby Veck said, I say. And 
I take my stand by Toby Veck, although he did stand 
all day long (and weary work it was) just outside the 
church-door. In fact, he was a ticket-porter, Toby Veck, 
and waited there for jobs. 

And a breezy, goose-skinned, blue -nosed, red-eyed, 
stony-toed, tooth-chattering place it was, to wait in, in 
the winter-time, as Toby Veck well knew. The wind 
came tearing round the corner — especially the east 
wind — as if it had sallied forth, .express, from the con- 
fines of the earth, to have a blow at Toby. And often- 
times it seemed to come upon him sooner than it had 
expected, for bouncing round the corner, and passing 
Toby, it would suddenly wheel round again, as if it 
cried, " Why, here he is!" Incontinently his little white 
apron would be caught up over his head like a naughty 
boy's garments, and his feeble little cane would be seen 






80 THE CHIMES. 

to wrestle and struggle unavailingly in his hand, and 
his legs would undergo tremendous agitation, and Toby 
himself all aslant, and facing now in this direction, now 
in that, would be so banged and buffeted, and touzled, 
and worried, and hustled, and lifted off his feet, as to 
render it a state of things but one degree removed from 
a positive miracle, that he wasn't carried up bodily into 
the air as a colony of frogs or snails or other very port- 
able creatures sometimes are, and rained down again, 
to the great astonishment of the natives, on some 
strange corner of the world where ticket-porters are un- 
known. 

But, windy weather, in spite of its using him so 
roughly, was, after all, a sort of holiday for Toby. 
That's the fact. He didn't seem to wait so long for a 
sixpence in the wind, as at other times ; the having to 
fight with that boisterous element took off his attention, 
and quite freshened him up, when he was getting hun- 
gry and low-spirited. A hard frost, too, or a fall of snow, 
was an event; and it seemed to do him good, somehow 
or other — it would have been hard to say in what re- 
spect though, Toby! So wind and frost and snow, and 
perhaps a good stiff storm of hail, were Toby Veck's 
red-letter days. 

Wet weather was the worst; the cold, damp, clammy 
wet, that wrapped him up like a moist great-coat — the 
only kind of great-coat Toby owned, or could have 
added to his comfort by dispensing with. Wet days, 
when the rain came slowly, thickly, obstinately down; 
when the street's throat, like his own, was choked with 
mist ; when smoking umbrellas passed and repassed, 
spinning round and round like so many teetotums, as 
they knocked against each other on the crowded foot- 
way, throwing off a little whirlpool of uncomfortable 
sprinklings ; when gutters brawled and water-spouts 
were full and noisy; when the wet from the projecting 
stones and ledges of the church fell drip, drip, drip, on 
Toby, making the wisp of straw on which he stood 
mere mud in no time; those were the days that tried 
him. Then, indeed, you might see Toby looking anx- 
iously out from his shelter in a,n angle of the church 
Avail — such a meagre shelter that in summer time it 
never cast a shadow thicker than a good-sized walking- 
stick upon the sunny pavement — with a disconsolate 



THE CHIMES. 81 

and lengthened face. But coming out a minute after- 
wards, to warm himself by exercise, and trotting up and 
down some dozen times, he would brighten even then, 
and go back more brightly to his niche. 

They called him Trotty from his pace, which meant 
speed if it didn't make it. He could have walked faster 
perhaps; most likely; but rob him of his trot, and Toby 
would have taken to his bed and died. It bespattered 
him with mud in dirty weather; it cost him a world of 
trouble ; he could have walked with infinitely greater 
ease; but that was one reason for his clinging to it so 
tenaciously. A weak, small, spare old man, he was a 
very Hercules, this Toby, in his good intentions. He 
loved to earn his money/ He delighted to believe — Toby 
was very poor, and couldn't well afford to part with a 
delight — that he was worth his salt. With a shilling or 
an eighteen-penny message or small parcel in hand, his 
courage, always high, rose higher. As he trotted on, he 
would call out to fast postmen ahead of him, to get out 
of the way; devoutly believing that in the natural course 
of things he must inevitably overtake and run them 
down; and he had perfect faith — not often tested — in his 
being able to carry anything that man could lift. 

Thus even when he came out of his nook to warm him- 
self on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with his leaky 
shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints in the mire; 
and blowing on his chilly hands and rubbing them 
against each other, poorly defended from the searching 
cold by threadbare mufflers of grey worsted, with a 
private apartment only for the thumb, and a common 
room or tap for the rest of the fingers; Tobj^, with his 
knees bent and his cane beneath his arm, still trotted. 
Falling r it into the road to look up at the belfry when 
the Chimes resounded, Toby trotted still. 

He made this last excursion several times a day, for 
they were company to him; and when he heard their 
voices, he had an interest in glancing at their lodging- 
place, and thinking how they were moved, and what ham- 
mers beat upon them. Perhaps he was the more curious 
about these Bells, because there were points of resem- 
blance between themselves and him. They hung there, 
in all weathers, with the wind and rain driving in upon 
them; facing only the outsides of all those houses; never 
getting any nearer to the blazing fires that gleamed and 

7 






82 THE CHIMES. 

shone upon the windows, or came puffing out of the 
chimney tops; and incapable of participation in any of 
the good things that were constantly being handed, 
through the street doors and area railings, to prodigious 
cooks. Faces came and went at many windows: some- 
times pretty faces, youthful faces, pleasant faces: some- 
times the reverse: but Toby knew no more (though he 
often speculated on these trifles, standing idle in the 
streets) whence they came, or where they went, or 
whether, when the lips moved, one kind word was said 
of him in all the year, than did the Chimes themselves. 

Toby was not a casuist — that he knew of, at least — 
and I don't mean to say that when he began to take to 
the Bells, and to knit up his first rough acquaintance 
with them into something of a closer and more delicate 
woof, he passed through those considerations one by 
one, or held any formal review or great field-day in his 
thoughts. But what I mean to say, and do say is, that 
as the functions of Toby's body, his digestive organs for 
example, did of their own cunning, and by a great many 
operations of which he was altogether ignorant, and the 
knowledge of which would have astonished him very 
much, arrive at a certain end; so his mental faculties, 
without his privity or concurrence, set all these wheels 
and springs in motion, with a thousand others, when 
they worked to bring about his liking for the Bells. 

And though I had said his love, I would not have re- 
called the word, though it would scarcely have expressed 
his complicated feeling. For being but a simple man, 
he invested them with a strange and solemn character. 
They were so mysterious, often heard and never seen; 
so high up, so far off, so full of such a deep, strong mel- 
ody, that he regarded them with a species of awe; and 
sometimes when he looked up at the dark arched win- 
dows in the tower, he half expected to be beckoned to 
by something which was not a Bell, and yet was what 
he heard so often sounding in the Chimes. For all this, 
Toby scouted with indignation a certain flying rumour 
that the Chimes were haunted, as implying the possi- 
bility of their being connected with any evil thing. In 
short, they were very often in his ears, and very often 
in his thoughts, but always in his good opinion; and he 
very often got such a crick in his neck by staring with 
his mouth wide open, at the steeple where they hung, 



THE CHIMES. 83 

that he was fain to take an extra trot or two, afterwards, 
to cure it. 

The very thing he was in the act of doing one cold 
day, when the last drowsy sound of Twelve o'clock, just 
struck, was humming like a melodious monster of a Bee, 
and not by any means a busy Bee, all through the steeple! 

" Dinner-time, eh!" said Toby, trotting up and down 
before the church. "Ah!" 

Toby's nose was very red, and his eyelids were very 
red, and he winked very much, and his shoulders were 
very near his ears, and his legs were very stiff, and 
altogether he was evidently a long way upon the frosty 
side of cool. 

"Dinner-time, eh!" repeated Toby, using his right 
hand muffler like an infantine boxing-glove, and pun- 
ishing his chest for being cold. " Ah-h-h-h!" 

He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or two. 

"There's nothing," said Toby, breaking forth afresh 
— but here he stopped short in his trot, and with a face 
of great interest and some alarm, felt his nose carefully 
all the way up. It was but a little way (not being much 
of a nose) and he had soon finished. 

"I thought it was gone," said Toby, trotting off 
again. " It's all right, however. lam sure I couldn't 
blame it if it was to go. It has a precious hard service 
of it in the bitter weather, and precious little to look 
forward to: for I don't take snuff myself. It's a good 
deal tried, poor creetur, at the best of times; for when it 
does get hold of a pleasant whiff or so (which an't too 
often), it's generally from somebody else's dinner, a- 
coming home from the baker's." 

The reflection reminded him of that other reflection, 
which he had left unfinished. 

"There's nothing," said Toby, "more regular in its 
coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regu- 
lar in it's coming round than dinner. That's the great 
difference between 'em. It's took me a long time to find 
it out. I wonder whether it would be worth any gentle- 
man's while, now, to buy that obserwation for the 
Papers; or the Parliament!" 

Toby was only joking, for he gravely shook his head 
in self-depreciation. 

"Why! Lord!" said Toby. "The Papers is full of 
obserwations, as it is; and so's the Parliament. Here's 



84 THE CHIMES. 

last week's paper/now;" taking a very dirty one from 
his pocket, and holding it from him at arm's length; 
"full of obserwations! Full of obserwations! I like to 
know the news as well as any man/' said Toby, slowly, 
folding it a little smaller, and putting it in his pocket 
again: " but it almost goes against the grain with me to 
read a paper now. It frightens me almost. I don't know 
what we poor people are coming to. Lord send we may 
be coming to something better in the New Year nigh 
upon us!" 

" Why, father, father!" said a pleasant voice, hard by. 

But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot backwards 
and forwards: musing as he went, and talking to him- 
self. 

"It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be 
righted," said Toby. " I hadn't much schooling, myself, 
when I was young; and I can't make out whether we 
have any business on the face of the earth, or not. 
Sometimes I think we must have — a little; and some- 
times I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled 
sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind 
whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are 
born bad. We seem to do dreadful things; we seem to 
give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained 
of and guarded against. One way or another, we fill 
the papers. Talk of a New Year!" said Toby, mourn- 
fully. " I can bear up as well as another man at most 
times; better than a good many, for I am as strong as a 
lion, and all men an't; but supposing it should really be 
that we have no right to a New Year — supposing we 
really are intruding — " 

"Why, father, father!" said the pleasant voice 
again. 

Toby heard it this time; started; stopped; and short- 
ening his sight, which had been directed a long way off 
as seeking for enlightenment in the very heart of the 
approaching year, found himself face to face with his 
own child, and looking close into her eyes. 

Bright eyes they were. Eyes that would bear a world 
of looking in, before their depth was fathomed. Dark 
eyes, that reflected back the eyes which searched them; 
not flashingly, or at the owner's will, but with a clear, 
calm, honest, patient radiance, claiming kindred with 
that light which Heaven called into being. Eyes that 







TROTTY VECK AND MEG, 






THE CHIMES. 85 

were beautiful and true, and beaming with Hope. With 
Hope so young and fresh; with Hope so buoyant, vig- 
ourous and bright, despite the twenty years of work and 
poverty on which they had looked; that they became a 
voice to Trotty Veck, and said: " I think we have some 
business here — a little!" 

Trotty kissed the lips belonging to the eyes, and 
squeezed the blooming face between his hands. 

" Why, Pet," said Trotty. "What's to do? I didn't 
expect you to-day, Meg." 

" Neither did I expect to come, father," cried the girl, 
nodding her head and smiling as she spoke. "But here 
I am! And not alone; not alone!" 

" Why, you don't mean to say," observed Trotty, look- 
ing curiously at a covered basket which she carried in 
her hand, " that you — " 

" Smell it, father dear," said Meg. " Only smell it!" 

Trotty was going to lift the cover at once, in a great 
hurry, when she gaily interposed her hand. 

"No, no, no," said Meg, with the glee of a child. 

"Lengthen it out a little. Let me just lift up the 
corner; just the lit-tle ti-ny cor-ner, you know," said 
Meg, suiting the action to the word with the utmost 
gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were 
afraid of being overheard by something inside the 
basket; "there. Now. What's that!" 

Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the 
basket, and cried out in a rapture: 

"Why, it's hot!" 

"It's burning hot!" cried Meg. "Ha, ha, ha! It's 
scalding hot!' ; 

" Ha, ha, ha!" roared Toby, with a sort of kick. " It's 
scalding hot!" 

"But what is it, father?" said Meg. "Come! You 
haven't guessed what it is. And you must guess what 
it is. I can't think of taking it out, till you guess what 
it is. Don't be in such a hurry! Wait a minute! A 
little bit more of the cover. Now guess!" 

Meg was in a perfect fright lest he should guess right 
too soon; shrinking away, as she held the basket to- 
wards him; curling up her pretty shoulders; stopping 
her ear with her hand, as if by so doing she could keep 
the right word out of Toby's lips; and laughing softly 
the whole time. 






86 THE CHIMES. 

Meanwhile Toby, putting a hand on each knee, bent 
down his nose to the basket, and took a long inspiration 
at the lid; the grin upon his withered face expanding in 
the process, as if he were inhaling laughing gas. 

" Ah! It's very nice," said Toby. " It an't — I suppose 
it an't Polonies?" 

"No, no, no!" cried Meg, delighted. "Nothing like 
Polonies!" 

"No," said Toby, after another sniff. "It's mellower 
than Polonies. It's very nice. It improves every mo- 
ment. It's too decided for Trotters. An't it!" 

Meg was in an ecstasy. He could not have gone 
wider of the mark than Trotters — except Polonies. 

"Liver?" said Toby, communing with himself. "No. 
There's a mildness about it that don't answer to liver. 
Pettitoes? No. It an't faint enough for pettitoes. It 
wants the stringiness of Cocks' heads. And I know it 
an't sausages. I'll tell you what it is. It's chitter- 
lings!" 

" No, it an't!" cried Meg, in a burst of delight. "No, 
it an't!" 

"Why, what am I thinking of!" said Toby, suddenly 
recovering a position as near the perpendicular as it was 
possible for him to assume. "I shall forget my own 
name next. It's tripe!" 

Tripe it was; and Meg, in high joy, protested he should 
say, in half a minute more, it was the best tripe ever 
stewed. 

"And so," said Meg, busying herself exultingly with 
her basket; "I'll lay the cloth at once, father; for I 
have brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the basin up 
in a pocket-handkerchief; and if I like to be proud for 
once, and spread that for a cloth, and call it a cloth, 
there's no law to prevent me; is there, father?" 

"Not that I know of, my dear," said Toby. "But 
they're always a bringing up some new law or other." 

"And according to what I was reading you in the 
paper the other day, father; what the Judge said, you 
know; we poor people are supposed to know them all. 
Ha, ha! What a mistake! My goodness me, how clever 
they think us!" 

"Yes, my dear," cried Trotty; "and they'd be very 
fond of any one of us that did know 'em all. He'd grow 
fat upon the work he'd get, that man, and be popular 



THE CHIMES. 87 

with the gentlefolks in his neighbourhood. Very 
much so!" 

1 'He'd eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he 
was, if it smelt like this/' said Meg, cheerfully. "Make 
haste, for there's a hot potato besides, and half a pint 
of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. Where will you dine, 
father? On the Post, or on the Steps? Dear, dear, how 
grand we are. Two places to choose from!" 

"The steps to-day, my Pet," said Trotty. "Steps in 
dry weather. Post in wet. There's a greater con- 
veniency in the steps at all times, because of the sitting 
down; but they're rheumatic in the damp." 

"Then here," said Meg, clapping her hands, after a 
moment's bustle; " here it is, all ready! And beautiful 
it looks! Come, father. Come!" 

Since his discovery of the contents of the basket, 
Trotty had been standing looking at her — and had been 
speaking too — in an abstracted manner, which showed 
that though she was the object of his thoughts and 
eyes, to the exclusion even of tripe, he neither saw nor 
thought about her as she was at that moment, but had 
before him some imaginary rough sketch or drama of 
her future life. Roused, now, by her cheerful sum- 
mons, he shook off a melancholy shake of the head 
which was just coming upon him, and trotted to her 
side. As he was stooping to sit down, the Chimes rang. 

" Amen!" said Trotty, pulling off his hat and looking 
up towards them. 

" Amen to the Bells, father?" cried Meg. 

" They broke in like a grace, my dear," said Trotty, 
taking his seat. " They'd say a good one, I am sure, if 
they could. Many's the kind thing they say to me." 

"The Bells do, father!" laughed Meg, as she set the 
basin, and a knife and fork before him. " Well!" 

" Seem to, my Pet," said Trotty, falling to with great 
vigour. "And where's the difference? If I hear 'em, 
what does it matter whether they speak it or not? Why, 
bless you, my dear," said Toby, pointing at the tower with 
his fork, and becoming more animated under the influ- 
ence of dinner, "how often have I heard them bells say, 
' Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby ! 
Toby Veck, Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!' A 
million times? More!" 

" Well, I never!" cried Meg. 






88 THE CHIMES. 

She had, though — over and over again. For it was 
Toby's constant topic. 

"When things is very bad," said Trotty; " very bad, 
indeed, I mean; almost at the worst; then it's 'Toby 
Veck, Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby! Toby Veck, 
Toby Veck, job coming soon, Toby!' That way." 

" And it comes — at last, father," said Meg, with a 
touch of sadness in her pleasant voice. 

" Always," answered the unconscious Toby. " Never 
fails." 

While this discourse was holding, Trotty made no 
pause in his attack upon the savoury meat before him, 
but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and cut and 
chewed, and dodged about, from tripe to hot potato, 
and from hot potato back again to tripe, with an 
unctuous and unflagging relish. But happening now to 
look all round the street — in case anybody should be 
beckoning from any door or window, for a porter — his 
eyes, in coming back again, encountered Meg: sitting 
opposite to him, with her arms folded: and only busy in 
watching his progress with a smile of happiness. 

"Why, Lord forgive me!" said Trotty, dropping his 
knife and fork. " My dove! Meg! why didn't you tell 
me what a beast I was?" 

"Father?" 

" Sitting here/' said Trotty, in penitent explanation, 
"cramming, and stuffing, and gorging myself; and 
you before me there, never so much as breaking your 
precious fast, nor wanting to, when — " 

" But I have broken it, father," interposed his 
daughter, laughing, "all to bits. I have had my 
dinner." 

" Nonsense," said Trotty. "Two dinners in one day! 
It ain't possible! You might as well tell me that two 
New Year's Days will come together, or that I have had 
a gold head all my life, and never changed it." 

"I have had my dinner, father, for all that," said 
Meg, coming nearer to him. "And if you'll go on with 
yours, I'll tell you how and where; and how your 
dinner came to be brought; and — and something else 
besides." 

Toby still appeared incredulous; but she looked into 
his face with her clear eyes, and laying her hand upon 
his shoulder, motioned him to go on while the meat was 



THE CHIMES. 89 

hot. So Trotty took up his knife and fork again, and 
went to work. But much more slowly than before, and 
shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with 
himself. 

"I had my dinner, father," said Meg, after a little 
hesitation, " with — with Richard. His dinner-time was 
early; and as he brought his dinner with him when he 
came to see me, we — we had it together, father." 

Trotty took a little beer, and smacked his lips. Then 
he said, "Oh!" — because she waited. 

"And Richard says, father — "Meg resumed. Then 
stopped. 

" What does Richard say, Meg?" asked Toby. 

"Richard says, father — " Another stoppage. 

"Riehard's a long time saying it," said Toby. 

" He says, then, father," Meg continued, lifting up her 
eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly; 
" another year is nearly gone, and where is the use of 
waiting on from year to year, when it is so unlikely 
we shall ever be better off than we are now? He says 
we are poor now, father, and we shall be poor then, but 
we are young now, and years will make us old before 
we know it. He says that if we wait: people in our 
condition: until we see our way quite clearly, the way 
will be a narrow one indeed — the common way — the 
Grave, father." 

A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have 
drawn upon his boldness largely, to deny it. Trotty 
held his peace. 

" And how hard, father, to grow old, and die, and 
think we might have cheered and helped each other! How 
hard in all our lives to love each other; and to grieve, 
apart, to see each other working, changing, growing 
old and grey. Even if I got the better of it, and forgot 
him (which I never could), oh, father dear, how hard to 
have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it 
slowly drained out every drop, without the recollection 
of one happy moment of a woman's life, to stay behind 
and comfort me, and make me better!" 

Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said 
more gaily: that is to say, with here a laugh, and there 
a sob, and here a laugh and sob together: 

" So Richard says, father; as his work was yesterday 
made certain for some time to come, and as I love him 



90 THE CHIMES. 

and have loved him full three years — ah! longer than 
that, if he knew it! — will I marry him on New Years 
Day; the best and happiest day, he says, in the whole 
year, and one that is almost sure to bring good fortune 
with it. It's a short notice, father — isn't it? — but I 
haven't my fortune to be settled, or my wedding dresses 
to be made, like the great ladies, father, have I? And 
he said so much, and said it in his way; so strong and 
earnest, and all the time so kind and gentle; that I said 
I'd come and talk to you, father. And as they paid the 
money for that work of mine this morning (unexpect* 
edly, I am sure!), and as you have fared very poorly for 
a whole week, and as I couldn't help wishing there 
should be something to make this day a sort of holiday 
to you as well as a dear and happy day to me, father, I 
made a little treat and brought it to surprise you." 

"And see how he leaves it cooling on the step!" said 
another voice. 

It was the voice of the same Richard, who had come 
upon them unobserved, and stood before the father and 
daughter; looking down upon them with a face as glow- 
ing as the iron on which his stout sledge-hammer daily 
rung. A handsome, well-made, powerful youngster he 
was; with eyes that sparkled like the red-hot droppings 
from a furnace fire; black hair that curled about his 
swarthy temples rarely; and a smile — a smile that bore 
out Meg's eulogiumon his style of conversation. 

" See how he leaves it cooling on the step!" said Rich- 
ard. " Meg don't know what he likes. Not she!" 

Trotty, all action and enthusiasm, immediately reached 
up his hand to Richard, and was going to address him 
in a great hurry, when the house door opened without 
any warning, and a footman very nearly put his foot in 
the tripe. 

"Out of the ways here, will you! You must always 
go and be a settin on our steps, must you! You can't go 
and give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can't 
you! Will you clear the road, or won't you?" 

Strictly speaking, the last question was irrelevant, as 
they had already done it. 

"What's the matter, what's the matter!" said the 
gentleman for whom the door was opened; coming out 
of the house at that kind of light-heavy pace — that pecu- 
liar compromise between a walk and a jog-trot — with 



THE CHIMES. 91 

which a gentleman upon the smooth down-hill of life, 
wearing creaking boots, a watch-chain, and clean linen, 
may come out of his house: not only without any abate- 
ment of his dignity, but with an expression of hav- 
ing important and wealthy engagements elsewhere. 
" What's the matter! What's the matter!" 

"You're always a being begged, and prayed, upon 
your bended knees, you are," said the footman with 
great emphasis to Trotty Veck, "to let our door-steps 
be. Why don't you let 'em be? Can't you let 'em be!" 

"There! That'll do! that'll do!" said the gentleman. 
"Halloa there! Porter!" beckoning with his head to 
Trotty Veck. "Come here. What's that? Your din- 
ner?" 

"Yes, sir," said Trotty, leaving it behind him in a 
corner. 

"Don't leave it there," exclaimed the gentleman. 
"Bring it here, bring it here. So! This is your dinner, 
is it?" 

"Yes, sir," repeated Trotty, looking with a fixed eye 
and a watery mouth, at the piece of tripe he had 
reserved for a last delicious tidbit; which the gentle- 
man was now turning over and over on the end of the 
fork. 

Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One 
was a low-spirited gentleman of middle age, of a meagre 
habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept his hands con- 
tinually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt 
trousers, very large and dog's-eared from that custom; 
and was not particularly well brushed or washed. The 
other, a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman, in 
a blue coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. 
This gentleman had a very red face, as if an undue pro- 
portion of the blood in his body were squeezed up into 
his head; which perhaps accounted for his having also 
the appearance of being rather cold about the heart. 

He who had Toby's meat upon the fork, called to the 
first one by the name of Filer; and they both drew near 
together. Mr. Filer being exceedingly short-sighted, 
was obliged to go so close to the remnant of Toby's 
dinner before he could make out what it was, that Toby's 
heart leaped up into his mouth. But Mr. Filer didn't 
eat it. 

" This is a description of animal food, Alderman," 



92 THE CHIMES. 

said Filer, making little punches in it, with a pencil- 
case, " commonly known to the labouring population of 
this co-untry, by the name of tripe." 

The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a 
merry fellow, Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow, too! 
A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to be im- 
posed upon. Deep in the people's hearts! He knew 
them, Cute did. I believe you! 

"But who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, looking round. 
*•' Tripe is without an exception the least economical, 
and the most wasteful article of consumption that the 
markets of this country can by possibility produce. The 
loss upon a pound of tripe has been found to be, in the 
boiling, seven-eighths of a fifth more than the loss upon 
a pound of any other animal substance whatever. Tripe 
is more expensive, properly understood, than the hot- 
house pine-apple. Taking into account the number of 
animals slaughtered yearly within the bills of mortality 
alone; and forming a low estimate of the quantity of 
tripe which the carcases of those animals, reasonably 
well butchered, would yield; I find that the waste on 
that amount of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison 
of five hundred men for five months of thirty-one days 
each, and a February over. The Waste, the Waste!" 

Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. 
He seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred 
men with his own hand. 

"Who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, warmly. "Who 
eats tripe?" 

Trotty made a miserable bow. 

"You do, do you?" saidMr. Filer. "Then Til tell you 
something. You snatch your tripe, my friend, out of 
the mouths of widows and orphans." 

"I hope not, sir," said Trotty, faintly. "I'd sooner 
die of want!" 

" Divide the amount of tripe before-mentioned, Alder- 
man," said Mr. Filer, " by the estimated number of 
existing , widows and orphans, and the result will be 
one pennyweight of tripe to each. Not a grain is left 
for that man. Consequently, he's a robber." 

Trotty was so shocked, that it gave him no concern to 
see the Alderman finish the tripe himself. It was a 
relief to get rid of it, anyhow. 

" And what do you say?" asked the Alderman, jocosely, 



THE CHIMES. 93 

of the red faced gentleman in the blue coat. ' * You have 
heard friend Filer. What do you say?" 

" What's it possible to say?" returned the gentleman. 
"What is to be said? Who can take any interest in a 
fellow like this/" meaning Trotty; "in such degenerate 
times as these. Look at him! What an object! The 
good old times, the grand old times, the great old times! 
Those were the times for a bold peasantry, and all that 
sort of thing, in fact. There's nothing now-a-days. 
Ah!" sighed the red-faced gentleman. "The good old 
times, the good old times!" 

The gentleman didn't specify what particular times 
he alluded to; nor did he say whether he objected to 
the present times, from a disinterested consciousness that 
they had done nothing very remarkable in producing 
himself. 

" The good old times, the good old times," repeated 
the gentleman. "What times they were! They were 
the only times. It's of no use talking about any other 
times, or discussing what the people are in these times. 
You don't call these, times, do you? I don't. Look 
into Strutt's Costumes, and see what a Porter used to be, 
in any of the good old English reigns." 

"He hadn't, in his very best circumstances, a shirt 
to his back, or a stocking to his foot; and there was 
scarcely a vegetable in all England for him to put into 
his mouth," said Mr. Filer. " I can prove it, by tables." 

But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good 
old times, the grand old times, the great old times. No 
matter what anybody else said, he still went turning 
round and round in one set form of words concerning 
them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in its revolv- 
ing cage; touching the mechanism, and trick of which, 
it has probably quite as distinct perceptions, as ever 
this red -faced gentleman had of his deceased Millennium. 

It is possible that poor Trotty's faith in these very 
vague Old Times was not entirely destroyed, for he felt 
vague enough at that moment. One thing, however, 
was plain to him, in the midst of his distress; to wit, 
that however these gentlemen might differ in details, 
his misgivings of that morning, and of many other 
mornings, were well founded. " No, no. We can't go 
right or do right," thought Trotty in despair. " There 
is no good in us. We are born bad!" 



94 THE CHIMES. 

But Trotty had a father's heart within him; which had 
somehow got into his breast in spite of this decree; and 
he could not bear that Meg, in the blush of her brief joy, 
should have her fortune read by these wise gentlemen. 
" God help her," thought poor Trotty. " She will know 
it soon enough. 7 ' 

He anxiously signed, therefore, to the young smith to 
take her away. But he was so busy, talking to her softly 
at a little distance, that he only became conscious of 
this desire, simultaneously with Alderman Cute. Now, 
the Alderman had not yet" had his say, but he was a phi- 
losopher, too — practical, though! Oh, very practical! — 
and, as he had no idea of losing any portion of his 
audience, he cried " Stop!" 

" Now, you know," said the Alderman, addressing his 
two friends, with a self-complacent smile upon his face, 
which was habitual to him, " I am a plain man, and a 
practical man; and I go to work in a plain, practical way. 
That's my way. There is not the least mystery or diffi- 
culty in dealing with this sort of people if you only 
understand 'em, and can talk to 'em in their own manner. 
Now, you Porter! Don't you ever tell me, or anybody 
else, my friend, that you haven't always enough to eat, 
and of the best; because I know better. I have tasted 
your tripe, you know, and you can't 'chaff' me. You 
understand what 'chaff' means, eh? That's the right 
word, isn't it? Ha, ha, ha! Lord bless you," said the 
Alderman, turning to his friends again, "it's the easiest 
thing on earth to deal with this sort of people, if you 
only understand 'em." 

Famous man for the common people, Alderman Cute! 
Never out of temper with them! Easy, affable, joking, 
knowing gentleman! 

"You see, my friend," pursued the Alderman, "there's 
a great deal of nonsense talked about Want — ' hard up,' 
you know; that's the phrase, isn't it? ha! ha! ha! — and 
I intend to Put it Down. There's a certain amount of 
cant in vogue about Starvation, and I mean to Put it 
Down. That's all! Lord bless you," said the Alderman, 
turning to his friends again, "you may Put Down any- 
thing among this sort of people, if you only know the 
way to set about it!" 

Trotty took Meg's hand and drew it through his arm. 
He didn't seem to know what he was doing though. 






THE CHIMES. 95 

"Your daughter, eh?" said the Alderman, chucking 
her familiarly under the chin. 

Always affable with the working classes, Alderman 
Cute! Knew what pleased them! Not a bit of pride! 

" Where's her mother?" asked that worthy gentleman. 

"Dead," said Toby. " Her mother got up linen; and 
was called to heaven when she was born." 

"Not to get up linen there, I suppose," remarked the 
Alderman pleasantly. 

Toby might or might not have been able to separate 
his wife in heaven from her old pursuits. But query: 
If Mrs. Alderman Cute had gone to heaven, would Mr. 
Alderman Cute have pictured her as holding any state 
or station there? 

"And you're making love to her, are you?" said Cute 
to the young smith. 

"Yes," returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled 
b3 r the question. " And we are going to be married on 
New Tear's Day." 

"What do you mean!" cried Filer, sharply. "Mar- 
ried!" 

"Why, yes, we're thinking of it, Master," said Rich- 
ard. " We're rather in a hurry you see, in case it should 
be Put Down first." 

"Eh! cried Filer, A^ith a groan. "Put that down in- 
deed, Alderman, and you'll do something. Married! 
Married! ! The ignorance of the first principles of po- 
litical economy on the part of these people; their improvi- 
dence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough to — 
Now look at that couple, will you!" 

Well! They were worth looking at. And marriage 
seemed as reasonable and fair a deed as they need have 
in contemplation. 

"A man may live to be as old as Methuselah," said 
Mr. Filer, " and may labour all his life for the benefit of 
such people as those: and may heap up facts on figures, 
facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains high and 
dry; and he can no more hope to persuade 'em that they 
have no right or business to be married, than he can 
hope to persuade 'em that they have no earthly right or 
business to be born. And that we know they haven't. 
We reduced it to a mathematical certainty long ago!" 

Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his 
right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to 



96 THE CHIMES. 

say to both his friends, "Observe me, will you? Keep 
your eye on the practical man!' 7 — and called Meg to him. 

"Come here, my girl!" said Alderman Cute. 

The young blood of her lover had been mounting, 
wrathfully, within the last few minutes; and he was in- 
disposed to let her come. But, setting a constraint upon 
himself, he came forward with a stride as Meg ap- 
proached, and stood beside her. Trotty kept her hand 
within his arm still, but looked from face to face as 
wildly as a sleeper in a dream. 

"Now, I'm going to give you a word or two of good 
advice, my girl," said the Alderman, in his nice, easy 
way. " It's my place to give advice, you know, because 
I'm a Justice. You know I'm a Justice, don't you?" 

Meg timidly said, " Yes." But everybody knew Alder- 
man Cute was a Justice! Oh, dear, so active a Justice 
always! Who such a mote of brightness in the public 
eye, as Cute! 

"You are going to be married, you say," pursued the 
Alderman. " Very unbecoming and indelicate of one of 
your sex! But nevermind that. After you are married, 
you'll quarrel with your husband, and come to be a dis- 
tressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because 
I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have 
made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, 
don't be brought before me. You'll have children- 
boys. Those boys will grow up bad, of course, and run 
wild in the streets, without shoes and stockings. Mind, 
my young friend! I'll convict 'em summarily, every one, 
for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and 
stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young 
(most likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you'll 
be turned out of doors, and wander up and down the 
streets. Now, don't wander near me, my dear, for I am 
resolved to Put all wandering mothers Down. All young 
mothers, of all sorts and kinds, it's my determination to 
Put Down. Don't think to plead illness as an excuse 
with me; or babies as an excuse with me; for all sick 
persons and young children (I hope you know the 
church-service, but I'm afraid not) I am determined to 
Put Down. And if you attempt, desperately, and un- 
gratefully, and impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to 
drown yourself or hang yourself, I'll have no pity on 
you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide 






THE CHIMES. 97 

Down! If there is one thing," said the Alderman, with 
his self-satisfied smile, "on which I can be said to 
have made up my mind more than on another, it is 
to Put suicide Down. So don't try it on. That's the 
phrase, isn't it! Ha, ha! now we understand each 
other." 

Toby knew not whether to be agonised or glad, to see 
that Meg had turned a deadly white, and dropped her 
lover's hand. 

"As for you, you dull dog," said the Alderman, turn- 
ing with even increased cheerfulness and urbanity to 
the young smith, "what are you thinking of being mar- 
ried for? What do you want to be married for, you silly 
fellow! If I was a fine, young, strapping chap like you, 
I should be ashamed of being milksop enough to pin my- 
self to a woman's apron-strings! Why, she'll be an old 
woman before you're a middle-aged man! And a pretty 
figure you'll cut then, with a draggle-tailed wife and a 
crowd of squalling children crying after you wherever 
you go!" 

Oh, he knew how to banter the common people, Alder- 
man Cute! 

"There! Go along with you," said the Alderman, 
" and repent. Don't make such a fool of yourself as to 
get married on New Year's Day. You'll think very dif- 
ferently of it, long before next New Year's Day: a trim 
young fellow like you, with all the girls looking after 
you. Go along with you!" 

They went along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, 
or interchanging bright glances; but she in tears; he 
gloomy and down-looking. Were these the hearts that 
had so lately made old Toby's leap up from its faintness? 
No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on his head!) had 
Put them Down. 

"As you happen to be here," said the Alderman to 
Toby, "you shall carry a letter for me. Can you be 
quick? You're an old man." 

Toby, who had been looking after Meg, quite stupidly, 
made shift to murmur out that he was very quick, and 
very strong. 

" How old are you?" inquired the Alderman. 

" I am over sixty, sir," said Toby. 

"Oh! This man's a great deal past the average age, 
you know," cried Mr. Filer, breaking in as if his 
8 






98 THE CHIMES. 

patience would bear some trying, but this was really 
carrying matters a little too far. 

"I feel I'm intruding, sir." said Toby. "I — I mis- 
doubted it this morning. Oh, dear me!" 

The Alderman cut him short by giving him the letter 
from his pocket. Toby would have got a shilling too; 
but Mr. Filer clearly showing that in that case he would 
rob a certain given number of persons of ninepence- 
half -penny a piece, he only got sixpence; and thought 
himself very well off to get that. 

Then the Alderman gave an arm to each of his friends, 
and walked off in high feather; but he immediately 
came hurrying back alone, as if he had forgotten some- 
thing. 

" Porter!" said the Alderman. 

" Sir!" said Toby. 

"Take care of that daughter of yours. She's much 
too handsome." 

"Even her good looks are stolen from somebody or 
other, I suppose," thought Toby, looking at the sixpence 
in his hand, and thinking of the tripe. " She's been and 
robbed five hundred ladies of abloom a piece, I shouldn't 
wonder. It's very dreadful!" 

"She's much too handsome, my man," repeated the 
Alderman. "The chances are, that she'll come to no 
good, I clearly see. Observe what I say. Take care of 
her!" With which, he hurried off again. 

" Wrong every way. Wrong every way!" said Trotty, 
clasping his hands. " Born bad. No business here!" 

The Chimes came clashing in upon him as he said the 
words. Full, loud, and sounding — but with no encour- 
agement. No, not a drop. 

"The tune's changed," cried the old man, as he lis- 
tened. "There's not a word of all that fancy in it. 
Why should there be? I have no business with the New 
Year nor with the old one neither. Let me die!" 

Still the Bells, pealing forth their changes, made the 
very air spin. Put 'em down, Put 'em down! Good old 
Times, Good old Times! Facts and Figures, Facts and 
Figures! Put 'em down, Put 'em down! If they said 
anything they said this, until the brain of Toby reeled. 

He pressed his bewildered head between his hands as 
if to keep it from splitting asunder. A well-timed 
action, as it happened; for finding the letter in one of 






THE CHIMES. 99 

them, and being by that means reminded of his charge, 
he fell, mechanically, into his usual trot, and trotted off. 



SECOND QUARTER. 

The letter Toby had received from Alderman Cute 
was addressed to a great man in the great district of the 
town. The greatest district of the town. It must have 
been the greatest district of the town, because it was 
commonly called "the world" by its inhabitants. 

The letter positively seemed heavier in Toby's hand 
than another letter. Not because the Alderman had 
sealed it with a very large coat of arms and no end of 
wax, but because of the weighty name on the super- 
scription, and the ponderous amount of gold and silver 
with which it was associated.. 

"How different from us!" thought Toby, in all sim- 
plicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direction. 
" Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mortality, by 
the number of gentlefolks able to buy 'em; and whose 
share does he take but his own! As to snatching tripe 
from anybody's mouth— he'd scorn it!" 

With the involuntary homage due to such an exalted 
character, Toby interposed a corner of his apron between 
the letter and his fingers. 

" His children," said Trotty, and a mist rose before his 
eyes; "his daughters — Gentlemen may win their hearts 
and marry them; they may be happy wives and mothers; 
they may be handsome like my darling M — e — " 

He couldn't finish her name. The final letter swelled 
in his throat, to the size of the whole alphabet. 

"Never mind," thought Trotty. "I know what 1 
mean. That's more than enough for me." And with 
this consolatory rumination, trotted on. 

It was a hard frost, that day. The air was bracing, 
crisp, and clear. The wintry sun, though powerless for 
warmth, looked brightly down upon the ice it was too 
weak to melt, and set a radiant glory there. At other 
times, Trotty might have learned a poor man's lesson 
from the wintry sun; but he was past that now. 

The Year was Old, that day. The patient Year had 
lived through the reproaches and misuses of its slander- 



100 THE CHIMES. 

ers, and faithfully performed its work. Spring, sum- 
mer, autumn, winter. It had laboured through the 
destined round, and now laid down its weary head to 
die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active happi- 
ness, itself, but messenger of many joys to others, it 
made appeal in its decline to have its toiling days and 
patient hours remembered, and to die in peace. Trotty 
might have read a poor man's allegory in the fading 
year; but he was past that now. 

And only he? Or has the like appeal been ever made, 
by seventy years at once upon an English labourer's 
head, and made in vain! 

The streets were full of motion, and the shops were 
decked out gaily. The New Year, like an Infant Heir 
to the whole world, was waited for, with welcomes, 
presents, and rejoicings. There were books and toys 
for the New Year, glittering trinkets for the New Year, 
dresses for the New Year, schemes of fortune for the 
New Year; new inventions to beguile it. Its life was 
parcelled out in almanacks and pocket-books; the com- 
ing of its moons, and stars, and tides, was known before- 
hand to the moment; all the workings of its seasons in 
their days and nights, were calculated with as much 
precision as Mr. Filer could work sums in men and 
women. 

The New Year, the New Year. Everywhere the New 
Year! The Old Year was already looked upon as dead; 
and its effects were selling cheap, like some drowned 
mariner's aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year's, 
and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its 
treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn 
successor! 

Trotty had no portion, to his thinking, in the New 
Year or the Old. 

" Put 'em down, Put 'em down! Facts and Figures, 
Facts and Figures! Good Old Times, Good Old Times! 
Put 'em down, Put 'em down!"— his trot went to that 
measure, and would fit itself to nothing else. 

But even that one, melancholy as it was, brought him, 
in due time, to the end of his journey. To the mansion 
of Sir Joseph Bowley, Member of Parliament. 

The door was opened by a Porter. Such a Porter! 
Not of Toby's order. Quite another thing. His place 
was the ticket though; not Toby's. 



THE CHIMES. 101 

This Porter underwent some hard panting before he 
could speak; having breathed himself by coming incau- 
tiously out of his chair, without first taking time to 
think about it and compose his mind. When he found 
his voice — which it took him some time to do, for it was 
a long way off, and hidden under a load of meat — he said 
in a fat whisper: 

" Who's it from?" 

Toby told him. 

" You're to take it in, yourself," said the Porter, point- 
ing to a room at the end of a long passage, opening from 
the hall. "Everything goes straight in, on this day of 
the year. You're not a bit too soon; for the carriage is 
at the door now, and they have only come to town for a 
couple of hours, a' purpose." 

Toby wiped his feet (which were quite dry already) 
with great care, and took the way pointed out to him; 
observing as he went that it was an awfully grand house, 
but hushed and covered up, as if the family were in the 
country. Knocking at the room door, he was told to 
enter from within; and doing so found himself in a spa- 
cious library, where, at a table strewn with files and 
papers, were a stately lady in a bonnet; and a not very 
stately gentleman in black who wrote from her dicta- 
tion; while another and an older, and a much statelier 
gentleman, whose hat and cane were on the table, 
walked up and down, with one hand in his breast, 
and looked complacently from time to time at his own 
picture — a full length; a very full length — hanging over 
the fireplace. 

" What is this?" said the last-named gentleman. "Mr. 
Fish, will you have the goodness to attend?" 

Mr. Fish begged pardon, and taking the letter from 
Toby, handed it, with great respect. 

" From Alderman Cute, Sir Joseph." 

"Is this all? Have you nothing else, Porter?" in- 
quired Sir Joseph. 

Toby replied in the negative. 

' ' You have no bill or demand upon me — my name is 
Bowley, Sir Joseph Bowley — of any kind from anybody, 
have you?" said Sir Joseph. "If you have, present 
it. There is a check-book by the side of Mr. Fish. 
I allow nothing to be carried into the New Year. 
Every description of account is settled in this house 



102 THE CHIMES. 

at the close of the old one. So that if death was to — 
to— " 

" To cut," suggested Mr. Fish. 

"To sever, sir/' returned Sir Joseph, with great as- 
perity, "the cord of existence — my affairs would be 
found, I hope, in a state of preparation." 

" My dear Sir Joseph!" said the lady, who was greatly 
younger than the gentleman. " Sow shocking!" 

"My Lady Bowley," returned Sir Joseph, floundering 
now and then, as in the great depth of his observations, 
" at this season of the year we should think of — of — our- 
selves. We should look into our — our accounts. We 
should feel that every return of so eventful a period in 
human transactions involves matter of deep moment 
between a man and his — and his banker." 

Sir Joseph delivered these words as if he felt the full 
morality of what he was saying; and desired that even 
Trotty should have an opportunity of being improved 
by such discourse. Possibly he had this end before 
him in still forbearing to break the seal of the letter, 
and in telling Trotty to wait where he was a minute. 

"You were desiring Mr. Fish to say, my lady — " ob- 
served Sir Joseph. 

" Mr. Fish has said that, I believe," returned his 
lady, glancing at the letter. "But, upon my word, Sir 
Joseph, I don't think I can let it go, after all. It is so 
very dear." 

" What is dear?" inquired Sir Joseph. 

" That Charity, my love. They only allow two votes 
for a subscription of five pounds. Really monstrous?" 

" My Lady Bowley," returned Sir Joseph, " you sur- 
prise me. Is the luxury of feeling in proportion to the 
number of votes; or is it, to a rightly-constituted mind, 
in proportion to the number of applicants, and the 
wholesome state of mind to which their canvassing 
reduces them! Is there no excitement of the purest 
kind in having two votes to dispose of among fifty 
people?" 

" Not to me, I acknowledge," returned the lady. "It 
bores one. Besides, one can't oblige one's acquaintance. 
But you are the Poor Man's Friend, you know, Sir Joseph. 
You think otherwise." 

" I am the Poor Man's Friend," observed Sir Joseph, 
glancing at the poor man present. " As such I may be 



THE CHIMES. 103 

taunted. As such I have been taunted. But I ask no 
other title." 

" Bless him for a noble gentleman!" thought Trotty. 

."I don't agree with Cute here, for instance, said Sir 
Joseph, holding out the letter. I don't agree with the 
Filer Party. I don't agree with any party. My friend, 
the Poor Man, has no business with anything of that 
sort, and nothing of that sort has any business with him. 
My friend, the Poor Man, in my district, is my business. 
No man or body of men has any right to interfere be- 
tween my friend and me. That is the ground I take. I 
assume a — a paternal character towards my friend. I 
say, % 'My good fellow, I will treat you paternally.' " 

Toby listened with great gravity, and began to feel 
more comfortable. 

"Your only business, my good fellow," pursued Sir 
Joseph, looking abstractedly at Toby; " your only busi- 
ness in life is with me. You needn't trouble yourself to 
think about anything. I will think for you; I know 
what is good for you; I am your perpetual parent. Such 
is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence! Now, the 
design of your creation is — not that you should swill, 
and guzzle, and associate your enjoyments, brutally, 
with food;" Toby thought remorsefully of the tripe; 
"but that you should feel the Dignity of Labour. Go 
forth erect into the cheerful morning air, and — and stop 
there. Live hard and temperately, be respectful, exer- 
cise your self-denial, bring up your family on next to 
nothing, pay your rent as regularly as the clock strikes, 
be punctual in your dealings (I set you a good example; 
you will find Mr. Fish, my confidential secretary, with 
a cash-box before him at all times) ; and you may trust 
to me to be your Friend and Father." 

"Nice children, indeed, Sir Joseph!" said the lady, 
with a shudder. "Rheumatisms, and fevers, crooked 
legs 9J and asthmas, and all kinds of horrors!" 

: 'My lady," returned Sir Joseph, with solemnity, 
" not the less am I the Poor Man's Friend and Father. 
Not the less shall he receive encouragement at my hands. 
Every quarter-day he will be put in communication 
with Mr. Fish. "Every New- Year's Day, myself and 
friends will drink his health. Once every year, myself 
and friends will address him with the deepest feeling. 
Once in his life, he may even perhaps receive; in public, 



104 THE CHIMES. 

in the presence of the gentry; a Trifle from a Friend. 
And when, upheld no more by these stimulants, and the 
Dignity of Labour, he sinks into his comfortable grave, 
then my lady" — here Sir Joseph blew his nose — " I will 
be a Friend and Father — on the same terms — to his 
children." 

Toby was greatly moved. 

" Oh! You have a thankful family, Sir Joseph!" cried 
his wife. 

" My lady," said Sir Joseph, quite majestically, "in- 
gratitude is known to be the sin of that class. I expect 
no other return." 

"Ah! Born bad!" thought Toby. '" Nothing melts 
us." 

"What man can do, I do," pursued Sir Joseph. " I 
do my duty as the Poor Man's Friend and Father; and 
I endeavour to educate his mind, by inculcating on all 
occasions the one great moral lesson which that class 
requires. That is, entire Dependence on myself. They 
have no business whatever with — with themselves. If 
wicked and designing persons tell them otherwise, and 
they become impatient and discontented, and are guilty 
of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude; 
which is undoubtedly the case; I am their Friend and 
Father still. It is so Ordained. It is in the nature of 
things." 

With that great sentiment he opened the Alderman's 
letter; and read it. 

"Very polite and attentive, lam sure!" exclaimed Sir 
Joseph. "My lady, the Alderman is so obliging as to 
remind me that he has had ' the distinguished honour' — 
he is very good — of meeting me at the house of our 
mutual friend Deedles, the banker; and he does me the 
favour to inquire whether it will be agreeable to me to 
have Will Fern put down." 

"Most agreeable!" replied my lady Bowley. "The 
worst man among them! He has been committing a 
robbery, I hepe?" 

"Why, no," said Sir Joseph, referring to the letter. 
"Not quite. Very near. Not quite. He came up to 
London, it seems, to look for employment (trying to 
better himself — that's his story), and being found at 
night asleep in a shed, was taken into custody, and car- 
ried next morning before the Alderman. The Alderman 



THE CHIMES. 105 

observes (very properly) that he is determined to put 
this sort of thing down; and that if it will be agreeable 
to me to have Will Fern put down, he will be happy to 
begin with him." 

" Let him be made an example of, by all means/' re- 
turned the lady. " Last winter, when I introduced 
pinking and eyelet-holing among the men and boys in 
the village, as" a nice evening employment, and had the 
lines — 

Oh, let us love our occupations, 
Bless the squire and his relations, 
Live upon our daily rations, 
And always know our proper stations — 

set to music on the new system, for them to sing the 
while; this very Fern — I see him now — touched that hat 
of his, and said, £ I humbly ask your pardon, my lady, 
but arCt I something different from a great girl?' I ex- 
pected it, of course; who can expect anything but inso- 
lence and ingratitude from that class of people. That 
is not to the purpose, however. Sir Joseph! Make an 
example of him!" 

"Hem!" coughed Sir Joseph. "Mr. Fish, if you'll 
have the goodness to attend — " 

Mr. Fish immediately seized his pen, and wrote from 
Sir Joseph's dictation. 

"Private. My dear Sir. I am very much indebted to you 
for your courtesy in the matter of the man William Fern, 
of whom, I regret to add, I can say nothing favour- 
able. I have uniformly considered myself in the light of 
his Friend and Father, but have been repaid (a common 
case, I grieve to say) with ingratitude, and constant op- 
position to my plans. He is a turbulent and rebellious 
spirit. His character will not bear investigation. Noth- 
ing will persuade him to be happy when he might. 
Under these circumstances it appears to me, I own, that 
when he comes before you again (as you informed me he 
promised to do to-morrow, pending your inquiries, and 
I think he may be so far relied upon), his committal for 
some short term as a Vagabond, would be a service to 
society, and would be a salutary example in a country 
where— for the sake of those who are, through good and 
evil report, the Friends and Fathers of the Poor, as well 
as with a view to that, generally speaking, misguided 






106 THE CHIMES. 

class themselves — examples are greatly needed. And I 
am/' and so forth. 

"It appears/' remarked Sir Joseph, when he had signed 
this letter, and Mr. Fish was sealing it, " as if this were 
Ordained: really. At the close of the year, I wind up 
my account and strike my balance, even with William 
Fern!" 

Trotty, who had long ago relapsed, and was very low- 
spirited, stepped forward with a rueful face to the 
letter. 

"With my compliments and thanks," said Sir Jo- 
seph. "Stop!" 

"Stop!" echoed Mr. Fish. 

"You have heard, perhaps," said Sir Joseph, oracu- 
larly, "certain remarks into which I have been led re- 
specting the solemn period of time at which we have 
arrived, and the duty imposed upon us of settling our 
affairs, and being prepared. You have observed that I 
don't shelter myself behind my superior standing in so- 
ciety, but that Mr. Fish — that gentleman — has a check- 
book at his elbow and is in fact here to enable me to 
turn over a perfectly new leaf, and enter on the epoch 
before us with a clean account. Now, my friend, can 
you lay your hand upon your heart, and say that you 
also have made preparation for a New Year?" 

" I am afraid, sir," stammered Trotty, looking meekly 
at him, " that I am a — a — little behind-hand with the 
world." 

"Behind-hand with the world!" repeated Sir Joseph 
Bowley, in a tone of terrible distinctness. 

"I am afraid, sir," faltered Trotty, "that there's a 
matter of ten or twelve shillings owing to Mrs. Chick- 
enstalker. 

" To Mrs. Chickenstalker!" repeated Sir Joseph, in the 
same tone as before. 

" A shop, sir," exclaimed Toby, "in the general line. 
Also a — a little money on account of rent. A very little, 
sir. It oughtn't to be owing, I know, but we have been 
hard put to it, indeed!" 

Sir Joseph looked at his lady, and at Mr. Fish, and at 
Trotty, one after another, twice all round. He then 
made a despondent gesture with both hands at once, as 
if he gave the thing up altogether. 

How a man, even among this improvident and im- 



a 



THE CHIMES. 107 

f>ra£ticable race; an old man; a man grown grey; can 
ook a New Year in the face, with his affairs in this con- 
dition; how he can lie down on his bed at night, and get 
up again in the morning, and — There!" he said, turning 
his back on Trotty. " Take the letter. Take the letter! 77 

"I heartily wish it was otherwise, sir," said Trotty, 
anxious to excuse himself. " We have been tried very 
hard." 

Sir Joseph still repeating "Take the letter, take the 
letter!" and Mr. Fish not only saying the same thing, 
but giving additional force to the request by motioning 
the bearer to the door, he had nothing for it but to make 
his bow and leave the house. And in the street, poor 
Trotty pulled his worn old hat down on his head, to 
hide the grief he felt at getting no hold on the New 
Year anywhere. 

He didn't even lift his hat to look up at the Bell tower 
when he came to the old church on his return. He 
halted there a moment from habit: and knew that it was 
growing dark, and that the steeple rose above him, in- 
distinct and faint, in the murky air. He knew, too, that 
the Chimes would ring immediately; and that they 
sounded to his fancy, at such a time, like voices in the 
clouds. But he only made the more haste to deliver the 
Alderman's letter, and get out of the way before they 
began; for he dreaded to hear them tagging "Friends 
and Fathers, Friends and Fathers," to the burden they 
had rung out last. 

Toby discharged himself of his commission, therefore, 
with all possible speed, and set off trotting homeward. 
But what with his pace, which was at best an awkward 
one in the street; and what with his hat, which didn't 
improve it; he trotted against somebody in less than no 
time, and was sent staggering out into the road. 

" I beg your pardon, I'm sure!" said Trotty, pulling up 
his hat in great confusion, and between the hat and the 
torn lining, fixing his head into a kind of bee-hive, " I 
hope I haven't hurt you." 

As to hurting anybody, Toby was not such an abso- 
lute Samson, but that he was much more likely to be 
hurt himself: and indeed, he had flown out into the road 
like a shuttlecock. He had such an opinion of his own 
strength, however, that he was in real concern for the 
other party: and said again: 



108 THE CHIMES. 

" I hope I haven't hurt you?" 

The man against whom he had run; a sun-browned, 
sinewy, country -looking man, with grizzled hair, and a 
rough chin; stared at him for a moment, as if he sus- 
pected him to be in jest. But, satisfied of his good faith, 
he answered: 

" No, friend. You have not hurt me." 

"Nor the child, I hope?" said Trotty. 

"Nor the child," returned the man. "I thank you 
kindly." 

As he said so, he glanced at a little girl he carried in 
his arms, asleep: and shading her face with the long 
end of the poor handkerchief he wore about his throat, 
went slowly on. 

The tone in which he said " I thank you kindly," pene- 
trated Trotty's heart. He was so jaded and foot-sore, 
and so soiled with travel, and looked about him so for- 
lorn and strange, that it was a comfort to him to be able 
to thank any one: no matter for how little. Toby stood 
gazing after him as he plodded wearily away, with the 
child's arm clinging round his neck. 

At the figure in the worn shoes — now the very shade 
and ghost of shoes — rough leather leggings, common 
frock, and broad slouched hat, Trotty stood gazing, 
blind to the whole street. And at the child's arm cling- 
ing round its neck. 

Before he merged into the darkness the traveller 
stopped; and looking round, and seeing Trotty standing 
there yet, seemed undecided whether to return or go on. 
After doing first the one and then the other, he came 
back, and Trotty went half way to meet him. 

" You can tell me, perhaps," said the man, with a faint 
smile, "and if you can I am sure you will, and I'd 
rather ask you than another — where Alderman Cute 
lives." 

"Close at hand," replied Toby. "I'll show you his 
house with pleasure." 

"I was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow," 
said the man, accompanying Toby, "but I'm uneasy 
under suspicion, and want to clear myself, and to be free 
to go and seek my bread — I don't know where. So, 
maybe he'll forgive my going to his house to-night." 

" It's impossible," cried Toby, with a start, "that your 
name's Fern!" 






TKE CHIMES. 109 

"Eh!" cried the other, turning on him in astonish- 
ment. 

"Fern! Will Fern!" said Trotty. 

" That's my name," replied the other. 

"Why, then," cried Trotty, seizing him by the arm, 
and looking cautiously round, " for Heaven's sake don't 
go to him! Don't go to him! He'll put you down as sure 
as ever you were born. Here! come up this alley, and 
I'll tell you what I mean. Don't go to him" 

His new acquaintance looked as if he thought him 
mad; but he bore him company nevertheless. When 
they were shrouded from observation, Trotty told him 
what he knew, and what character he had received, and 
all about it. 

The subject of his history listened to it with a calm- 
ness that surprised him. He did not contradict or inter- 
rupt it once. He nodded his head now and then — more 
in corroboration of an old and worn-out story, it ap- 
peared, than in refutation of it; and once or twice threw 
back his hat, and passed his freckled hand over a brow, 
where every furrow he had ploughed seemed to have 
set its image in little. But he did no more. 

" It's true enough in the main," he said; "master, I 
could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it be 
as 'tis. What odds? I have gone against his plans, to 
my misfortun'. I can't help it; I should do the like to- 
morrow. As to character, them gentlefolks will search 
and search, and pry and pry, and have it as free from 
spot or speck in us, afore they'll help us to a dry good 
word! — Well! I hope they don't lose good opinion as 
easy as we do, or their lives is strict indeed, and hardly 
worth the keeping. For myself, master, I never took 
with that hand" — holding it before him — "what 
wasn't my own; and never held it back from work, 
however hard, or poorly paid. Whoever can deny it, 
let him chop it off ! But when work won't maintain me 
like a human creetur; when my living is so bad, that I 
am Hungry, out of doors and in; when I see a whole 
working life begin that way, go on that way, and end 
that way, without a chance or change; then I say to the 
gentlefolks, 'Keep away from me! Let my cottage be. 
My doors is dark enough without your darkening of 'em 
more. Don't look for me to come up into the Park to 
help the show when there's a Birthday, or a fine Speech- 






110 THE CHIMES. 

making, or what not. Act your Plays and Games 
without me, and be welcome to 'em and enjoy 'em. 
We've now to do with one another. I'm best let alone!" 

Seeing that the child in his arms had opened her eyes, 
and was looking about her in wonder, he checked him- 
self to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, 
and stand her on the ground beside him. Then slowly 
winding one of her long tresses round and round his 
rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his 
dusty leg, he said to Trotty, 

" I'm not a cross-grained man by natur', I believe; and 
easy satisfied, I'm sure. I bear no ill will against none 
of 'em. I only want to live like one of the Almighty's 
creeturs. I can't — I don't — and so there's a pit dug be- 
tween me and them that can and do. There's others 
like me. You might tell 'em off by hundreds and by 
thousands, sooner than by ones." 

Trotty knew he spoke the truth in this, and shook his 
head to signify as much. 

" I've got a bad name this way," said Fern; and I'm 
not likely, I'm af eared, to get a better. 'Tan't lawful to 
be out of sorts, and I am out of sorts, though, God knows, 
I'd sooner bear a cheerful spirit if I could. Well! I don't 
know as this Alderman could hurt me much by sending 
me to jail; but without a friend to speak a word for me, 
he might do it; and you see — !" pointing downward 
with his finger at the child. 

" She has a beautiful face," said Trotty. 

"Why, yes!" replied the other, in a low voice, as he 
gently turned it up with both his hands towards his 
own, and looked upon it steadfastly. " I've thought so 
many times. I've thought so, when my hearth was 
very cold, and cupboard very bare. I thought so t'other 
night, when we were taken like two thieves. But they 
— they shouldn't try the little face too often — should 
they, Lilian? That's hardly fair upon a man!" 

He sunk his voice so low, and gazed upon her with an 
air so stern and strange, that Toby, to divert the current 
of his thoughts, inquired if his wife were living. 

" I never had one," he returned, shaking his head. 
" She's my brother's child — a orphan. Nine year old, 
though you'd hardly think it; but she's tired and worn 
out now. They'd have taken care on her, the Union — 
eight-and-tweiity mile away from where we live — be- 



THE CHIMES. Ill 

tween four walls (as they took care of my old father 
when he couldn't work no more, though he didn't 
trouble 'em long) ; but I took her instead, and she's lived 
with me ever since. Her mother had a friend once, in 
London here. We are trying to find her, and to find 
work, too; but it's a large place. Never mind. More 
room for us to walk about in, Lilly!" 

Meeting the child's eyes with a smile which melted 
Toby more than tears, he shook him by the hand. 

"I don't so much as know your name," he said, "but 
I've opened my heart free to you, for I'm thankful to 
you; with good reason. I'll take your advice and keep 
clear of this — " 

"Justice," suggested Toby. 

"Ah!" he said. " If that's the name they give him. 
This Justice. And to-morrow will try whether there's 
better fortun' to be met with somewhere's near London. 
Good-night. A Happy New Year!" 

"Stay!" cried Trotty, catching at his hand, as he 
relaxed his grip. " Stay! The New Year never can be 
happy to me, if we part like this. The New Year never 
can be happy to me, if I see the child and you go wan- 
dering away, you don't know where, without a shelter 
for your heads. Come home with me! I'm a poor man, 
living in a poor place; but I can give you lodging for 
one night and never miss it. Come home with me! 
Here! I'll take her!" cried Trotty, lifting up the child. 
" A pretty one! I'd carry twenty times her weight, and 
never know I'd got it. Tell me if I go too quick for 
you. I'm very fast. I always was!" Trotty said this, 
taking about six of his trotting paces to one stride of 
his fatigued companion; and with his thin legs quiver- 
ing again, beneath the load he bore. 

"Why, she's as light," said Trotty, trotting in his 
speech as well as in his gait; for he couldn't bear to be 
thanked, and dreaded a moment's pause; " as light as a 
feather. Lighter than a Peacock's feather — a great deal 
lighter. Here we are, and here we go! Round this first 
turning to the right, Uncle Will, and past the pump, 
and sharp off up the passage to the left, right opposite 
the public house. Here we are, and here we go. Cross 
over, Uncle Will, and mind the kidney pieman at the 
corner! Here we are, and here we go! Down the Mews 
here, Uncle Will, and stop at the black door, with 



/ 



112 THE CHIMES. 

'T.* Veck, Ticket Porter/ wrote upon a board; and here 
we are, and here we go, and here we are indeed, my 
precious Meg, surprising you!" 

With which words Trotty, in a breathless state, set 
the child down before his daughter in the middle of the 
floor. The little visitor looked once at Meg; and doubt- 
ing nothing in that face, but trusting everything she 
saw there; ran into her arms. 

" Here we are, and here we go!" cried Trotty, running 
round the room and choking audibly. ''Here, Uncle 
Will, here's a fire, you know! Why don't you come to 
the fire? Oh, here we are and here we go! Meg, my 
precious darling, where's the kettle? Here it is and here 
it goes, and it'll bile in no time!" 

Trotty really had picked up the kettle somewhere or 
other in the course of his wild career, and now put it on 
the fire; while Meg, seating the child in a warm corner, 
knelt down on the ground before her, and pulled off her 
shoes, and dried her wet feet on a cloth. Ay, and she 
laughed at Trotty, too — so pleasantly, so cheerfully, that 
Trotty could have blessed her where she kneeled: for he 
had seen that, when they entered, she was sitting by 
the fire in tears. 

"Why, father!" said Meg. "You're crazy to-night, I 
think. I don't know what the Bells would say to that. 
Poor little feet. How cold they are!" 

"Oh, they're warmer now!" exclaimed the child. 
" They're quite warm now!" 

"No, no, no," said Meg. "We haven't rubbed 'em 
half enough. We're so busy. So busy! And when 
they're done, we'll brush out the damp hair; and when 
that's done, we'll bring some colour to the poor pale face 
with fresh water; and when that's done we'll be so gay, 
and brisk, and happy — " 

The child, in a burst of sobbing, clasped her round the 
neck; caressed her fair cheek with its hand; and said, 
"Oh, Meg! oh, dear Meg!" 

Toby's blessing could have done no more. Who could 
do more. 

"Why, father!" cried Meg, after a pause. 

" Here I am, and here I go, my dear!" said Trotty. 

" Good Gracious me!" cried Meg. " He's crazy! He's 
put the dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and hung the 
lid behind the door!" 






THE CHIMES. 113 

" I didn't go to do it, my love," said Trotty, hastily 
repairing this mistake. % " Meg, my dear?" 

Meg looked towards tiim and saw that he had elabo- 
rately stationed himself behind the chair of their male 
visitor, where, with many mysterious gestures, he was 
holding up the sixpence he had earned. 

"I see, my dear," said Trotty, "as I was coming in, 
half an ounce of tea lying somewhere on the stairs; and 
I'm pretty sure there was a bit of bacon, too. As I 
don't remember where it was, exactly, I'll go myself 
and try to find 'em." 

With this inscrutable artifice, Toby withdrew to pur- 
chase the viands he had spoken of, for ready money, at 
Mrs. Chickenstalker's; and presently came back, pre- 
tending that he had not been able to find them, at first, 
in the dark. 

"But here they are at last," said Trotty, setting out 
the tea-things, "all correct! I was pretty sure it was 
tea and a rasher. So it is. Meg, my pet, if you'll just 
make the tea, while your unworthy father toasts the 
bacon, we shall be ready immediate. It's a curious cir- 
cumstance," said Trotty, proceeding in his cookery, 
with the assistance of the toasting-fork, "curious, but 
well known to my friends, that I never care, myself, for 
rashers, nor for tea. I like to see other people enjoy 
'em," said Trotty, speaking very loud to impress the 
fact upon his guests, "but to me, as food, they are dis- 
agreeable." 

Yet Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon — 
ah! — as if he liked it; and when he poured the boiling 
water in the tea-pot, looked lovingly down into the 
depths 04 that snug caldron, and suffered the fragrant 
steam to curl about his nose, and wreathe his head and 
face in a thick cloud. However, for all this, he neither 
ate nor drank, except at the very beginning, a mere 
morsel for form's sake, which he appeared to eat with 
infinite relish, but declared was perfectly uninteresting 
to him. 

No. Trotty's occupation was to see Will Fern and 
Lilian eat and drink; and so was Meg's. And never did 
spectators at a city dinner or court banquet find such 
high delight in seeing others feast: although it were a 
monarch or a pope: as those two did, in looking on that 
night. Meg smiled at Trotty. Trotty laughed at Meg. 



114 THE CHIMES. 

Meg shook her head and made belief to clap her hands, 
applauding Trotty; Trotty conveyed, in dumb-show, 
unintelligible narratives of how and when and where 
he had found their visitors, to Meg; and they were 
happy. Very happy. 

"Although," thought Trotty, sorrowfully, as he 
watched Meg's face; '"that match is broken off, I see!" 

" Now, I'll tell you what," said Trotty, after tea. " The 
little one, she sleeps with Meg, I know." 

"With good Meg!" cried the child, caressing her. 
"With Meg." 

" That's right," said Trotty. " And I shouldn't won- 
der if she kiss Meg's father, won't she? J'm Meg's 
father." 

Mightily delighted Trotty was, when the child went 
timidly towards him, and having kissed him, fell back 
upon Meg again. 

"She's as sensible as Solomon," said Trotty. "Here 
we come, and here we — no, we don't — I don't mean that 
— I — what was I saying, Meg, my precious?" 

Meg looked towards their guest, who leaned upon her 
chair, and with his face turned from her, fondled the 
child's head, half hidden in her lap. 

" To be sure," said Toby. " To be sure! I don't know 
what I am rambling on about, to-night. My wits are 
wool-gathering, I think. Will Fern, you come along 
with me. You're tired to death, and broken down for 
want of rest. You come along with me." 

The man still played with the child's curls, still leaned 
upon Meg's chair, still turned away his face. He didn't 
speak, but in his rough, coarse fingers, clenching and 
expanding in the fair hair of the child, th§re was an 
eloquence that said enough. 

"Yes, yes," said Trotty, answering unconsciously 
what he saw expressed in his daughter's face. "Take 
her with you, Meg. Get her to bed. There! Now, 
Will, I'll show you where you lie. It's not much of a 
place: only a loft; but, having a loft, I always say, is 
one of the great conveniences of living in a mews; and 
till this coach-house and stable gets a better let, we live 
here cheap. There's plenty of sweet hay up there, be- 
longing to a neighbour; and it's as clean as hands and 
Meg can make it. Cheer up! Don't give way. A new 
heart for a New Year, always!" 



! ■ 



THE CHIMES. 115 



The hand released from the child's hair, had fallen, 
trembling, into Trotty's hand. So Trotty, talking with- 
out intermission, led him out as tenderly and easily as 
if he had been a child himself. 

Returning before Meg, he listened for an instant at 
the door of her little chamber: an adjoining room. The 
child was murmuring a simple Prayer before lying down 
to sleep; and when she had remembered Meg's name, 
" Dearly, Dearly " — so her words ran — Trotty heard her 
stop and ask for his. 

It was some short time before the foolish little old 
fellow could compose himself to mend the fire, and 
draw his chair to the warm hearth. But when he had 
done so, and had trimmed the light, he took his news- 
paper from his pocket, and began to read. Carelessly 
at first, and skimming up and down the columns; but 
with an earnest and a sad attention, very soon. 

For this same dreaded paper redirected Trotty's 
thoughts into the channel they had taken all that day, 
and which the day's events had so marked out and 
shaped. His interest in the two wanderers had set him 
on another course of thinking, and a happier one, for 
the time; but being alone again, and reading of the 
crimes and violences of the people, he relapsed into his 
former train. 

In this mood he came to an account (and it was not 
the first he had ever read) of a woman who had laid her 
desperate hands not only on her own life but on that of 
her young child. A crime so terrible, and so revolting 
to his soul, dilated with the love of Meg, that he let the 
journal drop, and fell back in his chair, appalled ! 

" Unnatural and cruel!" Toby cried. " Unnatural and 
cruel! None but people who were bad at heart, born bad, 
who had no business on the earth, could do such deeds. 
It's too true, all I've heard to-day; too just, too full of 
proof. We're Bad!" 

The Chimes took up the words so suddenly — burst out 
so loud, and clear, and sonorous — that the Bells seemed 
to strike him in his chair. 

And what was that they said? 

"Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you, Toby! 
Toby Veck, Toby Veck, waiting for you, Toby ! Come 
and see us, come and see us, Drag him to us, drag him 
to us, Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him, Break 



116 THE CHIMES. 

his slumbers, break his slumbers ! Toby Veck, Toby 
Veck, door open wide, Toby, Toby Veck, Toby Veck, 
door open wide, Toby — " then fiercely back to their im- 
petuous strain again, and ringing in the very bricks and 
plaster on the walls. 

Toby listened. Fancy, fancy! His remorse for having 
run away from them that afternoon! No, no. Nothing 
of the kind. Again, again, and yet a dozen times 
again. " Haunt and hunt him, haunt and hunt him, 
Drag him to us, drag him to us!" Deafening the whole 
town ! 

" Meg," said Trotty, softly, tapping at her door. " Do 
you hear anything?" 

" I hear the Bells, father. Surely they're very loud 
to-night." 

"Is she asleep?" said Toby, making an excuse for 
peeping in. 

"So peacefully and happily! I can't leave her yet 
though, father. Look how she holds my hand!" 

" Meg!" whispered Trotty. " Listen to the Bells!" 

She listened, with her face towards him all the time. 
But it underwent no change. She didn't understand 
them. 

Trotty withdrew, resumed his seat by the fire, and 
once more listened by himself. He remained here a 
little time. 

It was impossible to bear it ; their energy was 
dreadful. 

"If the tower-door is really open," said Toby, hastily 
laying aside his apron, but never thinking of his hat, 
" what's to hinder me from going up in the steeple and 
satisfying myself ? If it's shut, I don't want any other 
satisfaction. That's enough." 

He was pretty certain as he slipped out quietly into 
the street that he should find it shut and locked, for he 
knew the door well, and had so rarely seen it open, that 
he couldn't reckon above three times in all. It was a 
low arched portal, outside the church, in a dark nook 
behind a column ; and had such great iron hinges, and 
such a monstrous lock, that there was more hinge and 
lock than door. 

But what was his astonishment when, coming bare- 
headed to the church; and putting his hand into this 
dark nook, with a certain misgiving that it might be 



THE CHIMES. 117 

unexpectedly seized, and a shivering propensity to draw 
it back again; he found that the door, which opened out- 
wards, actually stood ajar! 

He thought, on the first surprise, of going back; or of 
getting a light, or a companion ; but his courage aided 
him immediately, and he determined to ascend alone. 

"What have I to fear," said Trotty. "Its a church! 
Besides, the ringers may be there, and have forgotten 
to shut the door." 

So he went in, feeling his way as he went, like a blind 
man ; for it was very dark. And very quiet, for the 
chimes were silent. 

The dust from the street had blown into the recess; 
and lying there, heaped up, made it so soft and velvet- 
like to the foot, that there was something startling even 
in that. The narrow stair was so close to the door, too, 
that he stumbled at the very first; and shutting the 
door upon himself, by striking it with his foot, and 
causing it to rebound back heavily, he couldn't open it 
again. 

This was another reason, however, for going on. 
Trotty groped his way, and went on. Up, up, up, and 
round and round ; and up, up, up; higher, higher, 
higher up! 

It was a disagreeable staircase for that groping work; 
so low and narrow, that his groping hand was always 
touching something; and it often felt so like a man or 
ghostly figure standing up erect and making room for 
him to pass without discovery, that he would rub the 
smooth wall upward searching for its face, and downward 
searching for its feet, while a chill tingling crept all over 
him. Twice or thrice, a door or niche broke the monoto- 
nous surface; and then it seemed a gap as wide as the 
whole church; and he felt on the brink of an abyss, and 
going to tumble headlong down, until he found the wall 
again. 

Still up, up, up; and round and round; and up, up, 
up; higher, higher, higher up! 

At length the dull and stifling atmosphere began to 
freshen: presently to feel quite windy: presently it blew 
so strong, that he could hardly keep his legs. But he 
got to an arched window in the tower, breast high, and 
holding tight, looked down upon the house-tops, on the 
smoking chimneys, on the blurr and blotch of lights 



118 THE CHIMES. 

(towards the place where Meg was wondering where he 
was, and calling to him perhaps), all kneaded up to- 
gether in a leaven of mist and darkness. 

This was the belfry, where the ringers came. He had 
caught hold of one of the frayed ropes which hung down 
through apertures in the oaken roof. At first he started, 
thinking it was hair; then trembling at the very thought 
of waking the deep Bell. The Bells themselves were 
higher. Higher, Trotty, in his fascination, or in work- 
ing out the spell upon him, groped his way. By ladders 
new and toilsomely, for it was steep, and not too certain 
holding for the feet. 

Up, up, up; and climb and clamber; up, up, up; higher, 
higher, higher up. 

Until, ascending through the floor, and pausing with 
his head just raised above its beams, he came among the 
Bells. It was barely possible to make out their great 
shapes in the gloom; but there they were. Shadowy, 
and dark, and dumb. 

A heavy dense of dread and loneliness fell instantly 
upon him, as he climbed into this airy nest of stone and 
metal. His head went round and round. He listened 
and then raised a wild " Halloa!" 

Halloa! was mournfully protracted by the echoes. 

Giddy, confused, and out of breath, and frightened, 
Toby looked about him vacantly, and sunk down in a 
swoon. 



THIRD QUARTER. 

Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep 
waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a 
calm, gives up its Dead. Monsters uncouth and wild, 
arise in premature, imperfect resurrection; the several 
parts and shapes of different things are joined and 
mixed by chance; and when, and how, and by what 
wonderful degrees, each separates from each, and every 
sense and object of the mind resumes its usual form and 
lives again, no man — though every man is every day the 
casket of this type of the Great Mystery — can tell. 

So, when and how the darkness of the night-black 
steeple changed to shining light; when and how the 
solitary tower was peopled with a myriad figures; when 






THE CHIMES. 119 

and how the whispered "Haunt and hunt him/' breath- 
ing monotonously through his Sleep or swoon, became a 
voice exclaiming in the waking ears of Trotty, " Break 
his slumbers;" when and how he ceased to have a slug- 
gish and confused idea that such things were, com- 
panioning a host of others that were not; there are no 
dates or means to tell. But, awake, and standing on his 
feet upon the boards where he had lately lain, he saw 
this Goblin Sight. 

He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps 
had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, 
spirits, elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them leap- 
ing, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without a 
a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground; 
above him in the air, clambering from him, by the ropes 
below; looking down upon him, from the massive iron- 
girded beams; peeping in upon him, though the chinks 
and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away 
from him in enlarging circles, as the water ripples give 
place to a huge stone that suddenly comes plashing in 
among them. He saw them, of all aspects and all 
shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, ex- 
quisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw them old, 
he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he saw them 
merry, he saw them grim; he saw them dance, and 
heard them sing; he saw them tear their hair, and 
heard them howl. He saw the air thick with them. 
He saw them come and go, incessantly. He saw them 
riding downward, soaring upward, sailing off afar, 
perching near at hand, all restless, and all violently 
active. Stone, and brick, and slate, and tile, became 
transparent to him as to them. He saw them in the 
houses, busy at the sleepers' beds. He saw them sooth- 
ing people in their dreams; he saw them beating them 
with knotted whips; he saw them yelling in their ears; 
he saw them playing softest music on their pillows; he 
saw them cheering some with the songs of birds and 
the perfume of flowers; he saw them flashing awful 
faces on the troubled rest of others, from enchanted 
mirrors which they carried in their hands. 

He saw these creatures, not only among sleeping men 
but waking also, active in pursuits irreconcilable with 
one another, and possessing or assuming natures the 
most opposite. He saw one buckling on innumerable 



120 THE CHIMES. 

wings to increase his speed; another loading himself 
with chains and weighty to retard his. He saw some 
putting the hands of clocks forward, some putting the 
hands of clocks backward, some endeavouring to stop 
the clock entirely. He saw them representing, here a 
marriage ceremony, there a funeral; in this chamber an 
election, in that a ball; he saw, everywhere, restless 
and untiring motion. 

Bewildered by the host of shifting and extraordinary 
figures, as well as by the uproar of the Bells, which all 
this while were ringing, Trotty clung to a wooden pillar 
for support, and turned his white face here and there, 
in mute and stunned astonishment. 

As he gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous 
change! The whole swarm fainted; their forms col- 
lapsed, their speed deserted them; they sought to fly, 
but in the act of falling died and melted into air. No 
fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped 
down pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, 
and alighted on his feet, but he was dead and gone be- 
fore he could turn round. Some few of the late com- 
pany who had gambolled in the tower, remained there, 
spinning over and over a little longer; but these became 
at every turn more faint, and few, and feeble, and soon 
went the way of the rest. The last of all was one small 
hunchback, who had got into an echoing corner, where 
he twirled and twirled, and floated by himself a long 
time; showing such perseverance, that at last he 
dwindled to a leg and even to a foot, before he finally 
retired; but he vanished in the end, and then the tower 
was silent. 

Then, and not before, did Trotty see in every Bell a 
bearded figure of the bulk and stature of the Bell — in- 
comprehensibly, a figure and the Bell itself. Gigantic, 
grave, and darkly watchful of him, as he stood rooted 
to the ground. 

Mysterious and awful figures! Besting on nothing; 
poised in the night air of the tower, with their draped 
and hooded heads merged in the dim roof; motionless 
and shadowy. Shadowy and dark, although he saw 
them by some light belonging to themselves — none else 
was there — each with its muffled hand upon its goblin 
mouth. 

He could not plunge down wildly through the open- 



THE CHIMES. 121 

ing in the floor; for all power of motion had deserted 
him. Otherwise he would have done so — aye, would 
have thrown himself, head foremost, from the steeple- 
top, rather than have seen them watching him with eyes 
that would have waked and watched although the pupils 
had been taken out. 

Again, again, the dread and terror of the lonely place, 
and of the wild and fearful night that reigned there, 
touched him like a spectral hand. His distance from all 
help; the long, dark, winding, ghost-beleaguered way 
that lay between him and the earth on which men lived; 
his being high, high, high, up there, where it had made 
him dizzy to see the birds fly in the day; cut off from 
all good people, who at such an hour were safe at home 
and sleeping in their beds; all this struck coldly through 
him, not as a reflection but a bodily sensation. Mean- 
time his eyes and thoughts and fears were fixed upon 
the watchful figures: which, rendered unlike any fig- 
ures of this world by the deep gloom and shade enwrap- 
ping and enfolding them, as well as by their looks and 
forms and supernatural hovering above the floor, were 
nevertheless as plainly to be seen as were the stalwart 
oaken frames, cross-pieces, bars and beams, set up there 
to support the Bells. These hemmed them, in a very 
forest of hewn timber; from the entanglements, intrica- 
cies, and depths of which, as from among the boughs of 
a dead wood blighted for their Phantom use, they kept 
their darksome and unwinking watch. 

A blast of air — how cold and shrill! — came moaning 
through the tower. As it died away, the Great Bell, 
or the Goblin of the Great Bell, spoke. 

"What visitor is this!" it said. The voice was low 
and deep, and Trotty fancied that it sounded in the other 
figures as well. 

"I thought my name was called by the Chimes!" said 
Trotty, raising his hands in an attitude of supplication. 
" I hardly know why I am here, or how I came. I have 
listened to the chimes these many years. They have 
cheered me often." 

" And you have thanked them?" said the Bell. 

"A thousand times?" cried Trotty. 

"How?" 

" I am a poor man," faltered Trotty, " and could only 
thank them in words." 



122 THE CHIMES. 

"And always so?" inquired the Goblin of the Bell. 
■" Have you never done us wrong in words?" 

" No!" cried Trotty eagerly. 

" Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong, in 
words?" pursued the Goblin of the Bell. 

Trotty was about to answer, " Never!" But he stopped, 
and was confused. 

"The voice of Time," said the Phantom, "cries to 
man, Advance! Time is for his advancement and im- 
provement; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, 
his better life; his progress onward to that goal within 
its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the period 
when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wicked- 
ness, and violence, have come and gone — millions un- 
countable, have suffered, lived, and died — to point the 
way before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay 
him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which will 
strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the 
wilder, ever, for its momentary check!" 

"I never did so to my knowledge, sir." said Trotty. 
"It was quite by accident if I did. I wouldn't go to do 
it, I'm sure." 

" Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants," 
said the Goblin of the Bell, " a cry of lamentation for 
days which have had their trial and their failure, and 
have left deep traces of it which the blind may see — a 
cry that only serves the present time, by showing men 
how much it needs their help when any ears can listen to 
regrets for such a past — who does this, does a wrong. 
And you have done that wrong to us, the Chimes." 

Trotty's first excess of fear was gone. But he had felt 
tenderly and gratefully towards the Bells, as you have 
seen; and when he heard himself arraigned as one who 
had offended them so weightily, his heart was touched 
with penitence and grief. 

" If you knew," said Trotty, clasping his hands earn- 
estly — "or perhaps you do know— if you know how 
often you have kept me company; how often you have 
cheered me up when I've been low; how you were quite 
the plaything of my little daughter Meg (almost the only 
one she ever had) when first her mother died, and she 
and me were left alone; you won't bear malice for a 
hasty word!" 

"Who hears in us, the Chimes, one note bespeaking 



THE CHIMES. 123 

disregard, or stern regard/ of anj hope, or joy, or pain, 
or sorrow, of the many-sorrowed throng; who hears us 
make response to any creed that gauges human passions 
and affections, as it gauges the amount of miserable 
food on which humanity may pine and wither; does us 
wrong. That wrong you have done us/' said the Bell. 

" I have!" said Trotty. " Oh, forgive me!" 

" Who hears us echo the dull vermin of the earth: the 
Putters Down of crushed and broken natures, formed to 
be raised up higher than such maggots of the time can 
crawl or can conceive," pursued the Goblin of the Bell: 
"who does so, does us wrong. And you have done us 
wrong!" 

" Not meaning it," said Trotty. "In my ignorance. 
Not meaning it!" 

"Lastly, and most of all," pursued the Bell. "Who 
turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of hisjdnd; 
abandons them as vile; and does not trace and^rack 
with pitying eyes the unfenced precipice by which they 
fell from good — grasping in their fall some tufts and 
shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still when 
bruised and dying in the gulf below; does wrong to 
Heaven and man, to time and to eternity. And you have 
done that wrong!" 

"Spare me," cried Trotty, falling on his knees; "for 
Mercy's sake!" 

"Listen!" said the Shadow. 

"Listen!" cried the other Shadows. 

"Listen!" said a clear and child-like voice, which 
Trotty thought he recognized as having heard before. 

The organ sounded faintly in the church below. Swell- 
ing by degrees, the melody ascended to the roof, and 
filled the choir and nave. Expanding more and more, 
it rose up, up; up, up; higher, higher, higher up; awak- 
ening agitated hearts within the burly piles of oak, the 
hollow bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs of solid 
stone; until the tower walls were insufficient to contain 
it, and it soared into the sky. 

No wonder that an old man's breast could not contain 
a sound so vast and mighty. It broke from that weak 
prison in a rush of tears; and Trotty put his hands be- 
fore his face. 

" Listen!" said the Shadow. 

" Listen!" said the other Shadows. 



124 THE CHIMES. 

" Listen!" said the child's voice. 

A solemn strain of blended voices rose into the tower. 

It was a very low and mournful strain — a Dirge — and 
as he listened, Trotty heard his child among the singers. 

" She is dead!" exclaimed the old man. " Meg is dead! 
Her Spirit calls tome. I hear it!" 

"The Spirit of your child bewails the dead, and min- 
gles with the dead — dead hopes, dead fancies, dead im- 
aginings of youth," returned the Bell," but she is living. 
Learn from her life, a living truth. Learn from the 
creature dearest to your heart, how bad the bad are 
born. See every bud and leaf plucked one by one from 
off the fairest stem, and know how bare and wretched 
it may be. Follow her! To desperation!" 

Each of the shadowy figures stretched its right arm 
forth, and pointed downward. 

"The Spirit of the Chimes is your companion," said 
the figure. "Go! It stands behind you!" 

Trotty turned and saw — the child! The child Will 
Fern had carried in the street; the child whom Meg had 
watched, but now asleep!" 

"I carried her myself to-night," said Trotty. "In 
these arms!" 

" Show him what he calls himself," said the dark fig- 
ures, one and all. 

The tower opened at his feet. He looked down, and 
beheld his own form, lying at the bottom, on the out- 
side, crushed and motionless. 

" No more a living man!" cried Trotty. " Dead!" 

"Dead!" said the figures altogether. 

" Gracious Heaven! And the New Year — " 

" Past," said the figures. 

"What!" he cried shuddering. "I missed my way, 
and coming on the outside of this tower in the dark, fell 
down — a year ago?" 

"Nine years ago!" replied the figures. 

As they gave the answer, they recalled their out- 
stretched hands; and where their figures had been, 
there the Bells were. 

And they rung; their time being come again. And 
once again vast multitudes of phantoms sprung into 
existence; once again were incoherently engaged, as 
they had been before; once again, faded on the stopping 
of the Chimes; and dwindled into nothing. 



THE CHIMES. 125 

"What are these?" he asked his guide. " If I am not 
mad, what are these?" 

i; Spirits of the Bells. Their sound upon the air," re- 
turned the child. ' ' They take such shapes and occupa- 
tions as the hopes and thoughts of mortals, and the 
recollections they have stored up, give them." 

" And you," said Trotty, wildly. " What are you?" 

"Hush, hush!" returned the child. "Look here!" 

In a poor, mean room; working at the same kind of em- 
broidery, which he had often. often seen before her; Meg, 
his own dear daughter, w T as presented to his view. He 
made no effort to imprint his kisses on her face; he did 
not strive to clasp her to his loving heart; he knew that 
such endearments were, for him, no more. But he held 
his trembling breath, and brushed away the blinding 
tears, that he might look upon her; that he might only 
see her. 

Ah! Changed. Changed. The light of the clear 
eye, how dimmed. The bloom, how faded from the 
cheek. Beautiful she was, as she had ever been, but 
Hope, Hope, Hope, oh, where was the fresh Hope that 
had spoken to him like a voice! 

She looked up from her work, at a companion. Fol- 
lowing her eyes, the old man started back. 

In the woman grown, he recognised her at a glance. 
In the long silken hair, he saw the self -same curls; 
around the lips, the child's expression lingering still. 
See! In the eyes, now turned inquiringly on Meg, there 
shone the very look that scanned those features when 
he brought her home! 

Then what was this, beside him! 

Looking with awe into its face, he saw a something 
reigning there: a lofty something, undefined and indis- 
tinct, which made it hardly more than a remembrance 
of that child — as yonder figure might be — yet it was 
the same: the same: and wore the dress. 

Hark. They were speaking! 

"Meg," said Lilian, hesitating. "How often you 
raise your head from your work to look at me!" 

"Are my looks so altered, that they frighten you?" 
asked Meg. 

"Nay, dear! But you smile at that yourself! Why 
not smile when you look at me, Meg?" 

" I do so! do I not?" she answered: smiling on her. 



126 THE CHIMES. 

"Now you do/' said Lilian, "but not usually. When 
you think I'm busy, and don't see you, you look so 
anxious and so doubtful, that I hardly like to raise my 
eyes. There is little cause for smiling in this hard and 
toilsome life, but you were once so cheerful." 

"Am I not now!" cried Meg, speaking in a tone of 
strange alarm, and rising to embrace her. " Do I make 
our weary life more weary to you, Lilian !" 

"You have been the only thing that made it life," said 
Lilian, fervently kissing her; " sometimes the only thing 
that made me care to live so, Meg. Such work, such 
work! So many hours, so many days, so many long, 
long nights of hopeless, cheerless, never-ending work — 
not to heap up riches, not to live grandly or gaily, not 
to live upon enough, however coarse; but to earn bare 
bread, to scrape together just enough to toil upon, and 
want upon, and keep alive in us the consciousness of 
our hard fate! Oh, Meg, Meg!" she raised her voice and 
twined her arms about her as she spoke, like one in 
pain. "How can the cruel world go round, and bear to 
look upon such lives!" 

"Lilly!" said Meg, soothing her, and putting back her 
hair from her wet face. ' ' Why, Lilly ! You ! So pretty 
and so young!" 

"Oh, Meg!" she interrupted, holding her at arm's- 
length, and looking in her face imploringly. "The 
worst of all, the worst of all! Strike me, old Meg! 
Wither me and shrivel me, and free me from the 
dreadful thoughts that tempt me in my youth!" 

Trotty turned to look upon his guide. But the Spirit 
of the child had taken flight. Was gone. 

Neither did he himself remain in the same place; for 
Sir Joseph Bowley, Friend and Father of the Poor, held 
a great festivity at Bowley Hall, in honour of the natal 
day of Lady Bowley. And as Lady Bowley had been 
born on New Year's Day (which the local newspapers 
considered an especial pointing of the finger of Provi- 
dence to number One, as Lady Bowley's destined figure 
in Creation), it was on a New Year's Day that this fes- 
tivity took place. 

Bowley Hall was full of visitors. The red-faced gen- 
tleman was there. Mr. Filer was there, the great Alder- 
man Cute was there — Alderman Cute had a sympathetic 
feeling with great people, and had considerably improved 



THE CHIMES. 127 

his acquaintance with Sir Joseph Bowley on the strength 
of his attentive letter: indeed had become quite a friend 
of the family since then — and many guests were there. 
Trotty's ghost was there, wandering about, poor phan- 
tom, drearily; and looking for its guide. 

There was to be a great dinner in the great Hall, 
at which Sir Joseph Bowley, in his celebrated character 
of Friend and Father of the Poor, was to make his great 
speech. Certain plum puddings were to be eaten by his 
Friends a,nd Children in another Hall first; and at a 
given signal, Friends and Children flocking in among 
their Friends and Fathers, were to form a family assem- 
blage, with not one manly eye therein unmoistened by 
emotion. 

But there was more than this to happen. Even more 
than this. Sir Joseph Bowley, Baronet and Member of 
Parliament, was to play a match at skittles — real skit- 
tles — with his tenants! 

"Which quite reminds one, said Alderman Cute, 
" of the days of old King Hal, stout King Hal, bluff 
King Hal. Ah! Fine character!" 

"Very," said Mr. Filer, dryly. "For marrying 
women and murdering 'em. Considerably more than 
the average number of wives, by-the-bye." 

" You'll marry the beautiful ladies, and not murder 
em, eh?" said Alderman Cute to the heir of Bowley, 
aged twelve. "Sweet boy! We shall have this little 
gentleman in Parliament now," said the Alderman, 
holding him by the shoulders, and looking as reflective 
as he could, " before we know where we are. We shall 
hear of his successes at the poll; his speeches in the 
house; his overtures from Governments; his brilliant 
achievements of all kinds; ah! we shall make our little 
orations about him in the common council, I'll be bound; 
before we have time to look about us!" 

" Oh, the difference of shoes and stockings!" Trotty 
thought. But his heart yearned towards the child, for 
the love of those same shoeless and stockingless boys, 
predestined (by the Alderman) to turn out bad, who 
might have been the children of poor Meg. 

" Richard," moaned Trotty, roaming among the com- 
pany to and fro; "where is he? I can't find Richard! 
Where is Richard?" 

Not likely to be there, if still alive! But Trotty's 



128 THE CHIMES. 

grief and solitude confused him; and he still went wan- 
dering among the gallant company, looking for his 
guide and saying, "Where is Richard? Show me 
Richard!" 

He was wandering thus, when he encountered Mr. 
Fish, the confidential Secretary: in great agitation. 

" Bless my heart and soul!" cried Mr. Fish. "Where's 
Aldermen Cute? Has anybody seen the Alderman?" 

Seen the Alderman? Oh, dear! Who could ever help 
seeing the Alderman? He was so considerate, so affa- 
ble, he bore so much in mind the natural desire of folks 
to see him, that if he had a fault, it was the being con- 
stantly On View. And wherever the great people were, 
there, to be sure, attracted by the kindred sympathy 
between great souls, was Cute. 

Several voices cried that he was in the circle round 
Sir Joseph. Mr. Fish made way there; found him; and 
took him secretly into a window near at hand. Trotty 
joined them. Not of his own accord. He felt that his 
steps were led in that direction. 

"My dear Alderman Cute," said Mr. Fish. "A little 
more this way. The most dreadful circumstance has 
occurred. I have this moment received the intelligence. 
I think it will be best not to acquaint Sir Joseph with it 
till the day is over. You understand Sir Joseph, and 
will give me your opinion. The most frightful and 
deplorable event!" 

"Fish!" returned the Alderman. "Fish! My good 
fellow, what is the matter? Nothing revolutionary, I 
hope! No — no attempted interference with the magis- 
trates?" 

"Deedles, the banker," gasped the Secretary. "Dee- 
dies Brothers — who was to have been here to-day — high 
in office in the Goldsmiths' Company — " 

"Not stopped!" exclaimed the Alderman. "It can't 
be!" 

"Shot himself." 

" Good God!" 

"Put a double-barrelled pistol to his mouth, in his 
own counting-house," said Mr. Fish, "and blew his 
brains out. No motive. Princely circumstances!" 

" Circumstances!" exclaimed the Alderman. " A man 
of noble fortune. One of the most respectable of men. 
Suicide, Mr. Fish! By his own hand!" 



THE CHIMES. 129 

"This very morning/' returned Mr. Fish. 

" Oh, the brain, the brain!" exclaimed the pious Alder- 
man, lifting up his hands. "Oh, the nerves, the nerves; 
the mysteries of this machine called Man! Oh, the little 
that unhinges it: poor creatures that we are! Perhaps 
a dinner, Mr. Fish. Perhaps the conduct of his son, 
who, I have heard, ran very wild, and was in the 
habit of drawing bills upon him without the least 
authority! A most respectable man. One of the most 
respectable men I ever knew! A lamentable instance, 
Mr. Fish. A public calamity! I shall make a point of 
wearing the deepest mourning. A most respectable 
man! But there is One above. We must submit, Mr, 
Fish. We must submit!" 

What, Alderman! No word of Putting Down? Re- 
member, Justice, your high moral boast and pride. 
Come, Alderman! 'Balance those scales. Throw me 
into this, the empty one, no dinner, and Nature's founts 
in some poor woman, dried by starving misery and ren- 
dered obdurate to claims for which her offspring has 
authority in holy mother Eve. Weigh me the two, you 
Daniel, going to judgment, when your day shall come! 
Weigh them, in the eyes of suffering thousands, audi- 
ence (not unmindful) of the grim farce you play. Or 
supposing that you strayed from your five wits — it's not 
so far to go, but that it might be — and laid hands upon 
that throat of yours, warning your fellows (if you have 
a fellow) how they croak their comfortable wickedness 
to raving heads, and stricken hearts. What then? 

The words rose up in Trotty's breast, as if they had 
been spoken by some other voice within him. Alder- 
man Cute pledged himself to Mr. Fish that he would 
assist him in breaking the melancholy catastrophe to 
Sir Joseph, when the day was over. Then, before they 
parted, wringing Mr. Fish's hand in bitterness of soul, 
he said, "The most respectable of men!" And added 
that he hardly knew (not even he) why such afflictions 
were allowed on earth. 

"It's almost enough to make one think, if one didn't 
know better," said Alderman Cute, "that at times some 
motion of a capsizing nature was going on in things, 
which affected the general economy of the social fabric. 
Deedles Brothers!" 

The skittle-playing came off with immense success. 
10 



130 THE CHIMES. 

Sir Joseph knocked the pins about quite skilfully; 
Master Bowley took an innings at a shorter distance 
also; and everybody said that now, when a Baronet 
and the Son of a Baronet played at skittles, the 
country was coming round again, as fast as it could 
come. 

At its proper time, the Banquet was served up. Trotty 
involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the rest, for he 
felt himself conducted thither by some stronger impulse 
than his own free will. The sight was gay in the ex- 
treme; the ladies were very handsome; the visitors de- 
lighted, cheerful, and good-tempered. When the lower 
doors were opened, and the people flocked in, in their 
rustic dresses, the beauty of the spectacle was at its 
height; but Trotty only murmured more and more. 
" Where is Richard! He should help and comfort her! 
I can't see Richard!" 

There had been some speeches made, and Lady Bo wley's 
health had been proposed; and Sir Joseph Bowley had 
returned thanks, and had made his great speech, show- 
ing by various pieces of evidence that he was the born 
Friend and Father, and so forth; and had given as a 
Toast, his Friends and Children, and the Dignity of 
Labour; when a slight disturbance at the bottom of the 
hall attracted Toby's notice. After some confusion, 
noise, and opposition, one man broke through the rest, 
and stood forward by himself. 

Not Richard. No. But one whom he had thought of, 
and had looked for, many times. In a scantier supply 
of light, he might have doubted the identity of that 
worn man, so old, and grey, and bent; but with a blaze 
of lamps upon his gnarled and knotted head, he knew 
Will Fern as soon as he stepped forth. 

" What is this?" exclaimed Sir Joseph, rising. " Who 
gave this man admittance? This is a criminal from 
prison! Mr. Fish, sir, will you have the goodness — " 

" A minute!" said Will Fern., " A minute! My lady, 
you was born on this day along with a New Year. Get 
me a minute's leave to speak." 

She made some intercession for him. Sir Joseph took 
his seat again, with native dignity. 

The ragged visitor — for he was miserably dressed — 
looked round upon the company, and made his homage 
to them with a humble bow. 



i wa: 



THE CHIMES. 131 

" Gentlefolks!'' he said. "You've drunk the Labourer. 
Look at me!" 

" Just come from jail/' said Mr. Pish. 

" Just come from jail," said Will. " And neither for 
the first time, nor the second, nor the third, nor yet the 
fourth." 

Mr. Filer was heard to remark testily, that four times 
was over the average; and he ought to be ashamed of 
himself. 

"Gentlefolks!" repeated Will Fern. "Look at me. 
You see I'm at the worst. Beyond all hurt or harm; 
beyond your help; for the time when your kind words 
or kind actions could have done me good" — he struck 
his hand upon his breast, and shook his head — " is gone, 
with the scent of last year's beans or clover on the air. 
Let me say a word for these," pointing to the labouring 
people in the hall; " and when you're met together, hear 
the real Truth spoke out for once." 

" There's not a man here." said the host, "who would 
have him for a spokesman." 

" Like enough, Sir Joseph. I believe it. Not the less 
true, perhaps, is what I say. Perhaps that's a proof on 
it. Gentlefolks, I've lived many a year in this place. 
You may see the cottage from the sunk fence over 
yonder. I've seen the ladies draw it in their books a 
hundred times. It looks well in a picter, I've heerd 
say; but there an't weather in picters, and maybe 
'tis fitter for that than for a place to live in. Well! 
I lived there. How hard — how bitter hard, I lived 
there, I won't say. Any day in the year, and every 
day, you can judge for your own selves." 

He spoke as he had spoken on the night when Trotty 
found him in the street. His voice was deeper and 
more husky, and had a trembling in it now and then; 
but he never raised it, passionately, and seldom lifted 
it above the firm stern level of the homely facts he 
stated. % 

"'Tis harder than you think for, gentlefolks, to grow 
up decent, commonly decent, in such a place. That I 
growed up a man and not a brute, says something 
for me — as I was then. As I am now, there's noth- 
ing can be said for me or done for me. I'm past it." 

"I am glad this man has entered," observed Sir 
Joseph, looking round serenely. "Don't disturb him. 



132 THE CHIMES. 

It appears to be Ordained. He is an example: a living 
example. I hope and trust, and confidently expect, that 
it will not be lost upon my Friends here. 7 ' 

"I dragged on," said Fern, after a moment's silence, 
" somehow. Neither me nor any other man knows how; 
but so heavy, that I couldn't put a cheerful face upon it, 
or make believe that I was anything but what I was. 
Now, gentlemen — you gentlemen that sits at Sessions — 
when you see a man with discontent writ on his face, 
you says to one another, 'he's suspicious. I has my 
doubts,' says you, ' about Will Fern. Watch that fellow!' 
I don't say, gentlemen, it ain't quite nat'ral, but I say 
'tis so; and from that hour, whatever Will Fern does, or 
lets alone — all one — it goes against him." 

Alderman Cute stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat- 
pockets, and leaning back in his chair, and smiling, 
winked at a neighbouring chandelier. As much as to 
say, " Of course! I told you so. The common cry! Lord 
bless you, we are up to all this sort of thing — myself and 
human nature." 

"Now, gentlemen," said Will Fern, holding out his 
hands, and flushing for an instant in his haggard face. 
" See how your laws are made to trap and hunt us when 
we're brought to this. I tries to live elsewhere. And 
I'm a vagabond. To jail with him! I comes back here. 
I goes a nutting in your woods, and breaks — who don't 
— a limber branch or two. To jail with him! One of 
your keepers sees me in the broad day, near my own 
patch of garden, with a gun. To jail with him! I has a 
nat'ral angry word with that man, when I'm free again. 
To jail with him! I cuts a stick. To jail with him! I 
eats a rotten apple or a turnip. To jail with him! It's 
twenty mile away; and coming back I begs a trifle on 
the road. To jail with him! At last the constable, the 
keeper — anybody — finds me anywhere, a doing anything. 
To jail with him, for he's a vagrant, and a jail bird 
known; and jail's the only home h^s got." 

The Alderman nodded sagaciously, as who should say, 
"A very good home, too!" 

" Do I say this to serve my cause?" cried Fern. " Who 
can give me back my liberty, who can give me back my 
good name, who can give me back my innocent niece? 
Not all the Lords and Ladies in wide England. But gen- 
tlemen, gentlemen, dealing with other men like me, 






THE CHIMES. 133 

begin at the right end. Give us, in mercy, better homes 
when we're a lying in our cradles; give us better food 
when we're a working for our lives; give us kinder laws 
to bring us back when we're a going wrong; and don't 
set Jail, Jail, Jail, afore us, everywhere we turn. There 
ain't a condescension you can show the Labourer then, 
that he won't take, as ready and as grateful as a man 
can be; for, he has a patient, peaceful, willing heart. 
But you must put his rightful spirit in him first; for, 
whether he's a wreck and ruin such as me, or is like one 
of them that stand here now, his spirit is divided from 
you at this time. Bring it back, gentlefolks, bring it 
back! Bring it back, afore the day comes when even his 
Bible changes in his altered mind, and the words seem 
to him to read, as they have sometimes read in my own 
eyes — in Jail: 'Whither thou goest, 1 can Not go; where 
thou lodgest, I do Not lodge; thy people are Not my peo- 
ple; Nor thy God my God!' " 

A sudden stir and agitation took place in the Hall. 
Trotty thought, at first, that several had risen to eject 
the man; and hence this change in its appearance. But, 
another moment showed him that the room and all the 
company had vanished from his sight, and that his 
daughter was again before him, seated at her work. But 
in a poorer, meaner garret than before; and with no 
Lilian by her side. 

The frame at which she had worked was put away 
upon a shelf and covered up. The chair in which she 
had sat, was turned against the wall. A history was 
written in these little things, and in Meg's grief- worn 
face. Oh! who could fail to read it! 

Meg strained her eyes upon her work until it was too 
dark to see the threads; and when the night closed in, 
she lighted her feeble candle and worked on. Still her 
old father was invisible about her; looking down upon 
her; loving her — how dearly loving her! — and talking to 
her in a tender voice^about the old times, and the Bells. 
Though he knew, poor Trotty, though he knew she could 
not hear him. 

A great part of the evening had worn away, when a 
knock came at her door. She opened it. A man was on 
the threshold. A slouching, moody, drunken sloven, 
wasted by intemperance and vice, and with his matted 
hair and unshorn beard in wild disorder; but, with some 






134 THE CHIMES. 

traces on him, too, of having been a man of good pro- 
portion and good features in his youth. 

He stopped until he had her leave to enter; and she, 
retiring a pace or two from the open door, silently and 
sorrowfully looked upon him. Trotty had his wish. He 
saw Richard. 

" May I come in, Margaret?'' 

"Yes! Come in. Come in!" 

It was well that Trotty knew him before he spoke; for 
with any doubt remaining on his mind, the harsh, dis- 
cordant voice would have persuaded him that it was not 
Richard but some other man. 

There were but two chairs in the room. She gave 
hers, and stood at some short distance from him, wait- 
ing to hear what he had to say. 

He sat, however, staring vacantly at the floor; with 
a lustreless and stupid smile. A spectacle of such deep 
degradation, of such abject hopelessness, of such a mis- 
erable downfall, that she put her hands before her face 
and turned away, lest he should see how much it moved 
her. 

Roused by the rustling of her dress, or some such 
trifling sound, he lifted his head, and began to speak as 
if there had been no pause since he entered. 

" Still at work, Margaret? You work late." 

"I generally do." 

"And early?" 

" And early." 

" So she said. She said you never tired; or never 
owned that you tired. Not all the time you lived to- 
gether. Not even when you fainted, between work and 
fasting. But I told you that, the last time I came." 

"You did," she answered. "And I implored you to 
tell me nothing more; and you made me a solemn 
promise, Richard, that you never would." 

" A solemn promise," he repeated, with a drivelling 
laugh and a vacant stare. "A solemn promise. To be 
sure. A solemn promise!" Awakening, as it were, 
after a time, in the same manner as before; he said with 
sudden animation: 

"How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do? 
She has been to me again!" 

"Again!" cried Meg, clasping her hands. " Oh, does 
she think of me so often! Has she been again?" 



THE CHIMES. 135 

"Twenty times again/' said Richard. "Margaret, 
she haunts me. She comes behind me in the street, and 
thrusts it in my hand. I hear her foot upon the ashes 
when I'm at my work (ha, ha! that an't often), and be- 
fore I can turn my head, her voice is in my ear, saying, 
"Richard, don't look round. For Heaven's love, give 
her this!" She brings it where I live; she sends it in 
letters; she taps at the window and lays it on the sill. 
What can I do? Look at it!" 

He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked the 
money it enclosed. 

"Hide it," said Meg. "Hide it! When she comes 
again, tell her, Richard, that I love her in my soul. 
That I never lie down to sleep, but I bless her, and pray 
for her. That in my solitary work, I never cease to 
have her in my thoughts. That she is with me, night 
and day. That if I died to-morrow, I would remember 
her with my last breath. But, that I cannot look 
upon it!" 

He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the purse 
together, said with a kind of drowsy thoughtfulness: 

" I told her so. I told her so, as plain as word^ could 
speak. I've taken this gift back and left it at her door 
a dozen times since then. But when she came at last, 
and stood before me, face to face, what could I do?" 

" You saw her!" exclaimed Meg. " You saw her! Oh, 
Lilian, my sweet girl! Oh, Lilian, Lilian!" 

" I saw her," he went on to say, not answering, but 
engaged in the same slow pursuit of his own thoughts. 
"There she stood: trembling! 'How does she look, 
Richard? Does she ever speak of me? Is she thinner? 
My old place at the table: what's in my old place? And 
the frame she taught me our old w^ork on — has she 
burned it, Richard? ' There she was. I hear her say it." 

Meg checked her sobs, and with the tears streaming 
from her eyes, bent over him to listen. Not to lose a 
breath. 

With his arms resting on his knees; and stooping for- 
ward in his chair, as if what he said were written on the 
ground in some half legible character, which it was his 
occupation to decipher and connect; he went on. 

' Richard, I have fallen very low; and you may guess 
how much I have suffered in having this sent back, when 
I can bear to bring it in my hand to you. But you loved 



136 THE CHIMES. 

her once , even in my memory, dearly. Others stepped 
in between you; fears, and jealousies, and doubts, and 
vanities, estranged you from her; but you did love her, 
even in my memory!' I suppose I did," he said, interrupt- 
ing himself for a moment. " I did! That's neither here 
nor there. Oh, Richard, if you ever did; if you ever have 
any memory for what is gone and lost, take it to her once 
more. Once more! Tell her how I begged and prayed. 
Tell her how I laid my head upon your shoulder, 
where her own head might have lain, and was so humble 
to you, Richard. Tell her that you looked into my face, 
and saw the beauty which she used to praise, all gone: 
all gone: and in its place, a poor, wan, hollow cheek, that 
she would weep to see. Tell her everything, and take 
it back, and she will not refuse again. She will not 
have the heart!" 

So he sat musing, and repeating the last words, until 
he woke again, and rose. 

" You won't take it, Margaret?" 

She shook her head, and motioned an entreaty to him 
to leave her, 

"Good-night, Margaret." 

"Good-night!" 

He turned to look upon her; struck by her sorrow, and 
perhaps by the pity for himself which trembled in her 
voice. It was a quick and rapid action; and for the mo- 
ment some flash of his old bearing kindled in his form. 
In the next he went as he had come. Nor did this glim- 
mer of a quenched fire seem to light him to a quicker 
sense of his debasement. 

In any mood, in any grief, in any torture of the mind 
or body, Meg's work must be done. She sat down 
to her task, and plied it. Night, midnight. Still she 
worked. 

She had a meagre fire, the night being very cold; and 
rose at intervals to mend it. The chimes rang half-past 
twelve while she was thus engaged; and when they 
ceased she heard a gentle knocking at the door. Before 
she could so much as wonder who was there, at that un- 
usual hour, it opened. 

Oh, Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at 
this! Oh, Youth and Beauty, blessed and blessing all 
within your reach, and working out the ends of your 
Beneficent Creator, look at this! 



THE CHIMES. 137 

She saw the entering figure; screamed its name; 
cried "Lilian!" 

It was swift, and fell upon its knees before her: cling- 
ing to her dress. 

"Up dear! Up! Lilian! My own dearest!" 

"Never more, Meg; never more! Here! Here! Close 
to you, holding to you, feeling your dear breath upon 
my face!" 

" Sweet Lilian! Darling Lilian! Child of my heart- 
no mother's love can be more tender — lay your head upon 
my face!" 

"Never more, Meg. Never more ! When I first looked 
into your face, you knelt before me. On my knees be- 
fore you, let me die. Let it be here!" 

" You have come back. My Treasure! We will live 
together, work together, hope together, die together!" 

"Ah! Kiss my lips, Meg; fold your arms about me; 
press me to your bosom; look kindly on me; but don't 
raise me. Let it be here. Let me see the last of your 
dear face upon my knees!" 

Oh, Youth and Beauty, happy as ye should be, look at 
this! Oh, Youth and Beauty, working out the ends of 
your Beneficent Creator, look at this! 

"Forgive me, Meg! So dear, so dear! Forgive me! I 
know you do, I see you do, but say so, Meg!" 

She said so, with her lips on Lilian's cheek. And with 
her arms twined round — she knew it now — a broken 
heart, 

"His blessing on you, dearest love. Kiss me once 
more! He suffered her to sit beside His feet, and dry 
them with her hair. Oh, Meg, what Mercy and Com- 
passion!" 

As she died, the Spirit of the child returning, innocent 
and radiant, touched the old man with its hand, and 
beckoned him away. 



138 THE CHIMES. 



FOURTH QUARTER. 

Some new remembrance of the ghostly figures in the 
Bells; some faint impression of the ringing of the 
Chimes; some giddy consciousness of having seen the 
swarm of phantoms reproduced and reproduced until 
the recollection of them lost itself in the confusion of 
their numbers; some hurried knowledge, how conveyed 
to him he knew not, that more years had passed; and 
Trotty, with the Spirit of the child attending him, stood 
looking on at mortal company. 

Fat company, rosy- cheeked company, comfortable 
company. They were but two, but they were red enough 
for ten. They sat before a bright fire, with a small low 
table between them; and unless the fragrance of hot tea 
and muffins lingered longer in that room than in most 
others, the table had seen service very lately. But all 
the cups and saucers being clean, and in their proper 
places in the corner cupboard; and the brass toasting- 
fork hanging in its usual nook, and spreading its four 
idle fingers out, as if it wanted to be measured for a 
glove; there remained no other visible tokens of the 
meal just finished, than such as purred and washed 
their whiskers in the person of the basking cat, and 
glistened in the gracious, not to say the greasy, faces of 
her patrons. 

This cosy couple (married, evidently) had made a fair 
division of the fire between them,, and sat looking at the ; 
glowing sparks that dropped into the grate; now nod- 
ding off into a doze; now waking up again when some | 
hot fragment, larger than the rest, came rattling down, 
as if the fire were coming with it. 

It was in no danger of sudden extinction, however; 
for it gleamed not only in the little room, and on the 
panes of window-glass in the door, and on the curtain 
half drawn across them, but in the little shop beyond. 
A little shop, quite crammed and choked with the abun- 
dance of its stock; a perfectly voracious little shop, with 
a maw as accommodating and full as any shark's. 
Cheese, butter, firewood, soap, pickles, matches, bacon, 



THE CHIMES. 139 

table-beer, peg-tops,- sweetmeats, boys' kites, bird-seed, 
cold ham, birch brooms, hearth-stones, salt, vinegar, 
blacking, red-herrings, stationery, lard, mushroom- 
ketchup, staylaces, loaves of bread, shuttlecocks, eggs, 
and slate-pencil; everything was fish that came to the 
net of this greedy little shop, and all articles were in its 
net. How many other kinds of petty merchandise were 
there it would be difficult to say; but balls of pack- 
thread, ropes of onions, pounds of candles, cabbage-nets, 
and brushes, hung in bunches from the ceiling, like ex- 
traordinary fruit; while various old canisters, emitting 
aromatic smells, established the veracity of the inscrip- 
tion over the outer door, which informed the public that 
the keeper of this little shop was a licensed dealer in 
tea, coffee, tobacco, pepper, and snuff. 

Glancing at such of these items as were visible in the 
shining of the blaze, and the less cheerful radiance of 
two smoky lamps which burned but too dimly in the shop 
itself, as though its plethora sat heavy on their lungs; 
and glancing, then, at one of the two faces by the par- 
lour fire; Trotty had small difficulty in recognising in the 
stout old lady, Mrs. Chickenstalker: always inclined to 
corpulency, even in the days when he had known her 
as established in the general line, and having a small 
balance against him in her books. 

The features of her companion were less easy to him. 
The great broad chin, with creases in it large enough to 
hide a finger in; the astonished eyes, that seemed to ex- 
postulate with themselves for sinking deeper and deeper 
into the yielding fat of the soft face; the nose afflicted 
with that disordered action of its functions which is 
generally termed The Snuffles; the short, thick throat 
and labouring chest, with other beauties of the like 
description; though calculated to impress the memory, 
Trotty could at first allot to nobody he had ever known: 
and yet he had some recollection of them too. At length, 
in Mrs. Chickenstalker's partner in the general line, and 
in the crooked and eccentric line of life, he recognised 
the former porter of Sir Joseph Bowley; an apoplectic 
innocent, who had connected himself in Trotty's mind 
with Mrs. Chickenstalker years ago, by giving him ad- 
mission to the mansion where he had confessed his 
obligations to that lady, and drawn on his unlucky 
head such grave reproach. 



140 THE CHIMES. 

Trottyuhad little interest in a change like this, after 
the changes he had seen; but association is very strong 
sometimes; and he looked involuntarily behind the 
parlour door, where the accounts of credit customers 
were usually kept in chalk. There was no record of his 
name. Some names were there, but they were strange 
to him, and infinitely fewer than of old; from which he 
argued that the porter was an advocate of ready money 
transactions, and on coming into the business had 
looked pretty sharp after the Chickenstalker defaulters. 

So desolate was Trotty, and so mournful for the youth 
and promise of his blighted child, that it was a sorrow 
to him, even to have no place in Mrs. Chickenstalker's 
ledger. 

"What sort of a night is it, Anne?" inquired the for- 
mer porter of Sir Joseph Bowley, stretching out his legs 
before the fire, and rubbing as much of them as his 
short arms could reach; with an air that added, " Here 
I am if it's bad, and I don't want to go out if it's good.'' 

" Blowing and sleeting hard," returned his wife; "and 
threatening snow. Dark. And very cold." 

" I'm glad to think we had muffins," said the former 
porter, in the tone of one who had set his conscience at 
rest. "It's a sort of night that's meant for muffins. 
Likewise crumpets. Also Sally Lunns." 

The former porter mentioned each successive kind of 
eatable, as if he were musingly summing up his good 
actions. After which, he rubbed his fat legs as before, 
and jerking them at the knees to get the fire upon the 
yet unroasted parts, laughed as if somebody had tickled 
him. 

" You're in spirits, Tugby, my dear," observed his wife. 

The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker. 

"No," said Tugby. "No. Not particular. I'm a 
little elewated. The muffins came so pat!" 

With that he chuckled until he was black in the face; 
and had so much ado to become any other colour, that 
his fat legs took the strangest excursions into the air. 
Nor were they reduced to anything like decorum until 
Mrs. Tugby had thumped him violently on the back, and 
shaken him as if he were a great bottle. 

"Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy bless and 
save the man!" cried Mrs. Tugby, in great terror. 
"What's he doing?" 









THE CHIMES. 141 



Mr. Tugby wiped his eyes, and faintly repeated that 
he found himself a little elewated. 

" Then don't be so again, that's a dear good soul," said 
Mrs. Tugby, " if you don't want to frighten me to death, 
with your struggling and fighting!" 

Mr. Tugby said he wouldn't; but his whole existence 
was a fight, in which, if any judgment might be founded 
on the constantly-increasing shortness of his breath and 
the deepening purple of his face, he was always getting 
the worst of it. 

" So it's blowing, and sleeting, and threatening snow; 
and it's dark, and very cold, is it, my dear?" said Mr. 
Tugby, looking at the fire, and reverting to the cream 
and marrow of his temporary elevation. 

"Hard weather, indeed," returned his wife, shaking 
her head. 

"Aye, aye! Years," said Mr. Tugby, "are like 
Christians in that respect. Some of 'em die hard; some 
of 'em die easy. This one hasn't many days to run, and 
is making a fight for it. I like him all the better. There's 
a customer, my love!" 

Attentive to the rattling door, Mrs. Tugby had already 
risen. 

"Now, then!" said that lady, passing out into the little 
shop. " What's wanted? Oh! I beg your pardon, sir, 
I'm sure. I didn't think it was you." 

She made this apology to a gentleman in black, who, 
with his wristbands tucked up, and his hat cocked 
loungingly on one side, and his hand iifchis pockets, sat 
down astride on the table4)eer barrel, and nodded in 
return. 

" This is a bad business up-stairs, Mrs. Tugby," said 
the gentleman. " The man can't live." 

"Not the back-attic can't!" cried Tugby, coming out 
into the shop to join the conference. 

"The back-attic, Mr. Tugby," said the gentleman, "is 
coming down-stairs fast, and will be below the basement 
very soon." 

Looking by turns at Tugby and his wife, he sounded 
the barrel with his knuckles for the depth of beer, and 
having found it, played a tune upon the empty part. 

"The back-attic, Mr. Tugby," said the gentleman: 
Tugby having stood in silent consternation for some 
time; "is Going." 






142 THE CHIMES. 

"Then," said Tugby, turning to his wife, "he must 
Go, you know, before he's Gone." 

"I don't think you can move him," said the gentle- 
man, shaking his head. "I wouldn't take the responsi- 
bility of saying it could be done, myself. You had bet- 
ter leave him where he is. He can't live long." 

" It's the only subject," said Tugby, bringing the but- 
ter-scale down upon the counter with a crash, by weigh- 
ing his fist on it, "that we've ever had a word upon; 
she and me; and look what it comes to! He's going to 
die here, after all. Going to die upon the premises. 
Going to die in our house!" 

"And where should he have died, Tugby!" cried his 
wife. 

" In the workhouse," he returned. " What are work- 
houses made for?" 

" Not for that," said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy. 
"Not for that! Neither did I marry you for that. 
Don't think it, Tugby. I won't have it. I won't allow 
it. I'd be separated first, and never see your face again. 
When my widow's name stood over that door, as it did 
for many, many years: this house being known as Mrs. 
Chickenstalker's far and wide, and never known but to 
its honest credit and its good report: when my widow's 
name stood over that door, Tugby, I knew him as a hand- 
some, steady, manly, independent youth; I knew her as 
the sweetest-looking, sweetest-tempered girl, eyes ever 
saw; I knew her father (poor old creature, he fell down 
from the steeply walking in his sleep, and killed him- 
self), for the simplest, hardest- working, childest-hearted 
man, that ever drew the breath of life; and when I turn 
them out of house and home, may angels turn me out of 
heaven. As they would! And serve me right!" 

Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled 
one before the changes which had come to pass, seemed 
to shine out of her as she said these words; and 
when she dried her eyes, and shook her head and her 
handkerchief at Tugby, with an expression of firmness 
which it was quite clear was not to be easily resisted, 
Trotty said, "Bless her! Bless her!" 

Then he listened, with a panting heart, for what 
should follow. Knowing nothing yet, but that they 
spoke of Meg. 

If Tugby had been a little elevated in the parlour, he 






THE CHIMES. 143 

more than balanced that account by being not a little 
depressed in the shop, where he now stood staring at his 
wife, without attempting a reply; secretly conveying, 
however — either in a fit of abstraction or as a precau- 
tionary measure — all the money from the till into his 
own pockets, as he looked at her. 

The gentleman upon the table-beer cask, who ap- 
peared to be some authorized medical attendant upon 
the poor, was far too well accustomed, evidently, to 
little differences of opinion between man and wife, to 
interpose any remark in this instance. He sat softly 
whistling, and turning little drops of beer out of the tap 
upon the ground, until there was a perfect calm: wken 
he raised his head, and said to Mrs. Tugby, late Chicken- 
stalker: 

" There's something interesting about the woman, 
even now. How did she come to marry him?" 

"Why, that," said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near 
him, "is not the least cruel part of her story, sir. You 
see they kept company, she and Richard, many years 
ago. When they were a young and beautiful couple; 
everything was settled, and they were- to have been 
married on a New Year's Day. But, somehow, Richard 
got it into his head, through what the gentleman told 
him, that he might do better, and that he'd soon repent 
it, and that she wasn't good enough for him, and that a 
young man of spirit had no business to be married. 
And the gentleman frightened her, and made her melan- 
choly, and timid of his deserting her, and of her children 
coming to the gallows, and of its being wicked to be 
man and wife, and a good deal more of it. And in short, 
they lingered and lingered, and their trust in one an- 
other was broken, and so at last was the match. But 
the fault was his. She would have married him, sir, 
joyfully. I've seen her heart swell, many times after- 
wards, when he passed her in a proud and careless way; 
and never did a woman grieve more truly for a man, 
than she for Richard when he first went wrong." 

"Oh! he went wrong, did he?" said the gentleman, 
pulling out the vent-peg of the table beer, and trying to 
peep down into the barrel through the hole. 

" Well, sir, I don't know that he rightly understood 
himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled by their 
having broke with one another; and that but for being 



14* THE CHIMES. 

ashamed before the gentleman, and perhaps for being 
uncertain, too, how she might take it, he'd have gone 
through any suffering or trial to have had Meg's 
promise, and Meg's hand again. That's my belief. He 
never said so; more's the pity! He took to drinking, 
idling, bad companions: all the fine resources that 
were to be so much better for him than the Home 
he might have had. He lost his looks, his character, 
his health, his strength, his friends, his work: every- 
thing!" 

" He didn't lose everything, Mrs. Tugby," returned 
the gentleman, "because he gained a wife; and I want 
to know how he gained her." 

"I'm coming to it, sir, in a moment. This went on 
for years and years; he sinking lower and lower; she 
enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear her life 
away. At last he was so cast down, and cast out, that 
no one would employ or notice him; and doors were shut 
upon him, go where he would. Applying from place to 
place, and door to door; and coming for the hundredth 
time to one gentleman who had often and often tried 
him (he was a good workman to the very end); that gen- 
tleman, who knew his history, said, "I believe you are 
incorrigible; there is only one person in the world who 
has a chance of reclaiming you; ask me to trust you no 
more, until she tries to do it." Something like that, in 
his anger and vexation. 

" Ah!" said the gentleman. " Well?" 

" Well, sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said 
it was so; said it ever had been so; and made a prayer 
to her to save him." 

"And she? — Don't distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby." 

" She came to me that night to ask me about living 
here. ' What he was once to me,' she said, 'is buried in 
a grave, side by side with what I was to him. But I 
have thought of this; and I will make the trial. In the 
hope of saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl 
(you remember her) who was to have been married on a 
New Year's day; and for the love of her Richard.' And 
she said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had 
trusted to him, and she never could forget that. So 
they were married; and when they came home here, 
and I saw them, I hoped that such prophecies as parted 
them when they were young, may not often fulfil them- 






THE CHIMES. 145 

selves as they did in this case, or I wouldn't be the 
makers of them for a Mine of Gold." 

The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched him- 
self, observing: 

"I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were mar- 
ried?" 

" I don't think he ever did that," said Mrs. Tugby, 
shaking her head and wiping her eyes. " He went on 
better for a short time; but his habits were too old and 
strong to be got rid of; he soon fell back a little; and 
was falling fast back, when his illness came so strong 
upon him. I think he has always felt for her. I am 
sure he has. I've seen him, in his crying fits and trem- 
blings, try to kiss her hand; and I have heard him call 
her 'Meg/ and say it was her nineteenth birthday. 
There he has been lying, now, these weeks and months. 
Between him and her baby, she has not been able to do 
her old work; and by not being able to be regular, she 
has lost it, even if she could have done it. How they 
have lived, I hardly know!" 

"i know," muttered Mr. Tugby, looking at the till, 
and round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling his head 
with immense intelligence. " Like Fighting Cocks!" 

He was interrupted by a cry — a sound of lamentation 
— from the upper story of the house. The gentleman 
moved hurriedly to the door. 

" My friend," he said, looking back, "you needn't dis- 
cuss whether he shall be removed or not. He has spaced 
you that trouble, I believe." 

Saying so, he ran up-stairs, followed by Mrs. Tugby; 
while Mr. Tugby panted and grumbled after them at 
leisure; being rendered more than commonly short- 
winded by the weight of the till, in which there had 
been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty, 
with the child beside him, floated up the staircase like 
mere air. 

"Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!" He heard 
the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he 
ascended. " Learn it, from the creature dearest to your 
heart!" 

It was over. It was over. And this was she, her 
father's pride and joy! This haggard, wretched woman, 
weeping by the bed, if it deserved that name, and press- 
ing to her breast, and hanging down her nead upon, an 
11 



146 THE CHIMES. 

infant? Who can tell how spare, how sickly, and how 
poor an infant? Who can tell how dear! 

" Thank God!" cried Trotty, holding up his folded 
hands. . " Oh, God be thanked! She loves her child V 

The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or indif- 
ferent to such scenes, than that he saw them every day, 
and knew that they were figures of no moment in the 
Filer sums — mere scratches in the working of those cal- 
culations — laid his hand upon the heart that beat no 
more, and listened for the breath, and said, "His pain 
is over. It's better as it is!" Mrs. Tugby tried to com- 
fort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby tried philosophy. 

" Come, come!" he said, with his hands in his pockets, 
"you mustn't give way, you know. That won't do. 
You must fight up. What would have become of me if 
I had given way when I was porter, and we had as 
many as six runaway carriage-doubles at our door in 
one night! But I fell back upon my strength of mind, 
and didn't open it!" 

Again Trotty heard the voices, saying, "Follow her!" 
He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising from 
him, passing through the air. "Follow her!" it said. 
And vanished. 

He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked 
up into her face for one trace of her old self; listened 
for one note of her old pleasant voice. He flitted round 
the child: so wan, so prematurely old, so dreadful in its 
gravity, so plaintive in its feeble, mournful, miserable 
wail. He almost worshipped it. He clung to it as her 
only safeguard; as the last unbroken link that bound 
her to endurance. He set his father's hope and trust on 
the frail baby; watched her every look upon it as she 
held it in her arms; and cried a thousand times, " She 
loves it! God be thanked, she loves it!" 

He saw the woman tend her in the night; return to 
her when her grudging husband was asleep, and all 
was still; encourage her, shed tears with her, set nour- 
ishment before her. He saw the day come, and the 
night again; the day, the night; the time go by; the 
house of death relieved of death; the room left to her- 
self and to the child; he heard it moan and cry; he saw 
it harrass her, and tire her out, and when she slumbered 
in exhaustion, drag her back to consciousness, and hold 
her with its little hands upon the rack; but she was con- 



THE CHIMES. 147 

stant to it, gentle with it, patient with it. Patient! 
Was its loving mother in her inmost heart and soul, 
and had its Being knitted up with hers as when she 
carried it unborn. 

All this time, she was in want: languishing away, in 
dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she 
wandered here and there in quest of occupation; and 
with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in 
hers, did any work for any wretched sum: a day and 
night of labour for as many farthings as there were 
figures on the dial. If she had quarrelled with it; if she 
had neglected it; if she had looked upon it with a 
moment's hate; if, in the frenzy of an instant, she had 
struck it! No. His comfort was, She loved it always. 

She told no one of her extremity, and wandered 
abroad in the day lest she should be questioned by her 
only friend: for any help she received from her hands 
occasioned fresh disputes between the good woman and 
her husband; and it was new bitterness to be the daily 
cause of strife and discord, where she owed so much. 

She loved it still. She loved it more and more. But a 
change fell on the aspect of her love. One night. 

She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walking 
to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly opened, 
and a man looked in. 

" For the last time," he said c 

"William Fern!" 

"For the last time." 

He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in whis- 
pers. 

"Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn't finish 
it, without a parting word with you. Without one 
grateful word." 

"What have you done?" she asked: regarding him 
with terror. 

He looked at her, but gave no answer. 

After a short silence, he made a gesture with his 
hand, as if he set her question by; as if he brushed it 
aside; and said: 

"It's long ago, Margaret, now; but that night is as 
fresh in my memory as ever 'twas. We little thought 
then," he added, looking round, "that we should ever 
meet like this. Your child, Margaret? Let me have it 
in my arms. Let me hold your child." 



148 THE CHIMES. 

He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he 
trembled as he took it, from head to foot. 

" Is it a girl?" 

"Yes." 

He put his hand before its little face. 

"See how weak I'm grown, Margaret, when I want 
the courage to look at it ! Let her be, a moment. I 
won't hurt her. It's long ago, but — What's her 
name?" 

" Margaret," she answered quickly. 

" I'm glad of that," he said. " I'm glad of that!" 

He seemed to breathe more freely; and after pausing 
for an instant, took away his hand, and looked upon the 
infant's face. But covered it again immediately. 

"Margaret!" he said; and gave her back the child. 
"It's Lilian's." 

"Lilian's!" 

"I held the same face in my arms when Lilian's 
mother died and left her." 

"When Lilian's mother died and left her!" she re- 
peated, wildly. 

" How shrill you speak ! Why do you fix your eyes 
upon me so? Margaret!" 

She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant to 
her breast, and wept over it. Sometimes, she released 
it from her embrace, to look anxiously in its face; then 
strained it to her bosom again. At those times, when 
she gazed upon it, then it was that something fierce and 
terrible began to mingle with her love. Then it was, 
that her old father quailed. 

"Follow her!" was sounded through the house. 
" Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!" 

" Margaret," said Fern, bending over her, and kissing 
her upon the brow; "I thank you for the last time. 
Good-night! Good-bye! Put your hand in mine, and 
tell me you'll forget me from this hour, and try to think 
the end of me was here." 

" What have you done?*' she asked again. 

"There'll be a Fire to-night," he said, removing from 
her. "There'll be Fires this winter-time, to light the 
dark nights, East, West, North, and South. When you 
see the distant sky red, they'll be blazing. When you 
see the distant sky red, think of me no more; or, if you 
do, remember what a Hell was lighted up inside of me, 



THE CHIMES. 149 

and think you see its flames reflected in the clouds. 
Good-night. Good-bye !" 

She called to him ; but he was gone. She sat down 
stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hun- 
ger, cold and darkness. She paced the room with it the 
livelong night, hushing it and soothing it. She said at 
intervals, " Like Lilian, when her mother died and left 
her!" Why was her step so quick, her eyes so wild, her 
love so fierce and terrible, whenever she repeated those 
words? 

"But, it is Love," said Trotty. "It is Love. She'll 
never cease to love it. My poor Meg!" 

She dressed the child next morning with unusual care 
— ah! vain expenditure of care upon such squalid robes! 
— and once more tried to find some means of life. It 
was the last day of the Old Year. She tried till night, 
and never broke her fast. She tried in vain. 

She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in the 
snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to dispense 
the public charity (the lawful charity; not that, once 
preached upon a Mount), to call them in, and question 
them, and say to this one, "go to such a place," to that 
one, "come next week;" to make a football of another 
wretch, and pass him here and there, from hand to hand, 
from house to house, until he wearied and lay down to 
die; or started up and robbed, and so became a higher 
sort of criminal, whose claims allowed of no delay. 
Here, too, she failed. 

She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on 
her breast. And that was quite enough. 

It was night ; a bleak, dark, cutting night ; when, 
pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived 
outside the house she called her home. She was so faint 
and giddy, that she saw no one standing in the door- 
way until she was close upon it, and about to enter. 
Then she recognised the master of the house, who had 
so disposed himself — with his person it was not difficult 
— as to fill up the whole entry. 

" Oh!" he said softly. "You have come back?" 

She looked at the child, and shook her head. 

i; Don't you think you have lived here long enough 
without paying any rent? Don't you think that, without 
any money, you've been a pretty constant customer at 
this shop, now?" said Mr. Tugby. 



150 THE CHIMES. 

She repeated the same mute appeal.- 

"Suppose you try and deal somewhere else," he said. 
"And suppose you provide yourself with another lodg- 
ing. Come! Don't you think you could manage it?" 

She said, in a low voice, that it was very late. To- 
morrow. 

" Now I see what you want/' said Tugby; "and what 
you mean. You know there are two parties in this 
house about you, and you delight in setting 'em by the 
ears. I don't want any quarrels; I'm speaking softly to 
avoid a quarrel; but if you don't go away, I'll speak out 
loud, and you shall cause words high enough to please 
you. But you shan't come in. That I am determined." 

She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a 
sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering dis- 
tance. 

"This is the last night of an Old Year, and I won't 
carry ill-blood and quarrellings and disturbances into a 
New One, to please you nor anybody else," said Tugby, 
who was quite a retail Friend and Father. " I wonder 
you ain't ashamed of yourself, to carry such practices 
into a New Year. If you haven't any business in the 
world, but to be always giving way, and always making 
disturbances between man and wife, you'd be better out 
of it. Go along with you!" 

"Follow her! To desperation!" 

Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up, he 
saw the figures hovering in the air, and pointing where 
she went, down the dark street. 

" She loves it!" he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for 
her. "Chimes! she loves it still!" 

"Follow her!" The shadows swept upon the track 
she had taken, like a cloud. 

He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he 
looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and terrible 
expression mingling with her love, and kindling in her 
eyes. He heard her say, "Like Lilian! To be changed 
like Lilian!" and her speed redoubled. 

Oh, for something to awaken her! For any sight, or 
sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in a brain 
on fire! For any gentle image of the Past, to rise 
before her! 

"I was her father! I was her father!" cried the old 
man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows 



THE CHIMES. 151 

flying on above. "Have mercy on her, and on me! 
Where does she go? Turn her back! I was her father!" 

But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on; and 
said, "To desperation! Learn it from the creature 
dearest to your heart!" 

A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of 
breath expended in those words. He seemed to take 
them in, at every gasp he drew. They were everywhere, 
and not to be escaped. And still she hurried on; the 
same light in her eyes, the same words in her mouth; 
" Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!" 

All at once she stopped. 

"Now, turn her back!" exclaimed the old man, tearing 
his white hair. "My child! Meg! Turn her back! 
Great Father, turn her back!" 

In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby warm. 
With her fevered hands, she smoothed its limbs, com- 
posed its face, arranged its mean attire. In her wasted 
arms she folded it, as though she never would resign it 
more. And with her dry lips, kissed it in a final pang, 
and last long agony of Love. 

Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding it 
there, within her dress, next to her distracted heart, she 
set its sleeping face against her: closely, steadily, 
against her: and sped onward to the river. 

To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter 
Mght sat brooding like the last dark thoughts of many 
who had sought a refuge there before her. Where 
scattered lights upon the banks gleamed sullen, red and 
dull, as torches that were burning there, to show the 
way to Death. Where no abode of living people cast 
its shadow, on the deep, impenetrable, melancholy 
shade. 

To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desper- 
ate footsteps tended with the swiftness of its rapid 
waters running to the sea. He tried to touch her as she 
passed him, going down to its dark level; but the wild 
distempered form, the fierce and terrible love, the 
desperation that had left all human check or hold be- 
hind, swept by him like the wind. 

He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink, 
before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, 
and in a shriek addressed the figures in the Bells now 
hovering above them. 






152 THE CHIMES. 

" I have learned it!" cried the old man. "From the 
creature dearest to my heart! Oh, save her, save her!" 

He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold it! 
As the words escaped his lips he felt his sense of touch 
return, and knew that he detained her. 

The figures looked down steadfastly upon him. 

"I have learned it!" cried the old man. "Oh, have 
mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so 
young and good, I slandered Nature in the breasts of 
mothers rendered desperate! Pity my presumption, 
wickedness, and ignorance, and save her!" 

He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still. 

"Have mercy on her!" he exclaimed, "as one in 
whom this dreadful crime has sprung from Love per- 
verted; from the strongest, deepest Love we fallen crea- 
tures know!" Think, what her misery must have been, 
when such seed bears such fruit. Heaven meant her to 
be good. There is no loving mother on the earth who 
might not come to this, if such a life had gone before. 
Oh, have mercy on my child, who, even at this pass, 
means mercy to her own, and dies herself, and perils 
her immortal soul, to save it!" 

She was in his arms. He held her now. His strength 
was like a giant's. 

" I see the spirit of the Chimes among you!" cried the 
old man, singling out the child, and speaking in some 
inspiration, which their looks conveyed to him. "I 
know that our inheritance is held in store for us by 
Time. I know there is a sea of Time to rise one day, 
before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be 
swept away like leaves. I see it, on the flow! I know 
that we must trust and hope, and neither doubt our- 
selves, nor doubt the good in one another. I have learned 
it from the creature dearest to my heart. I clasp her in 
my arms again. Oh, Spirits, merciful and good, I take 
your lesson to my breast along with her! Oh, Spirits, 
merciful and good, I am grateful!" 

He might have said more; but, the Bells, the old fa- 
miliar Bells, his own dear, constant, steady friends, the 
Chimes, began to ring the joy-peals for a New Year: so 
lustily, so merrily, so happily, so gaily, that he leaped 
upon his feet, and broke the spell that bound him. 

"And whatever you do, father," said Meg, "don't eat 



THE CHIMES. U3 

tripe again, without asking some doctor whether it's 
likely to agree with you; for how you have been going 
on, Good gracious!" 

She was working with her needle, at the little table 
by the fire; dressing her simple gown with ribbons for 
her wedding. So quietly happy, so blooming and 
youthful, so full of beautiful promise, that he uttered a 
great cry as if it were an Angel in his house; then flew 
to clasp her in his arms. 

But he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had 
fallen on the hearth; and somebody came rushing in 
between them. 

"No!" cried the voice of this same somebody; a gen- 
erous and jolly voice it was! " Not even you. Not even 
you. The first kiss of Meg in the New Year is mine! 
Mine! I have been waiting outside the house, this hour, 
to hear the Bells and claim it. Meg, my precious prize, 
a happy year! A life of happy years, my darling 
wife!" 

And Richard smothered her with kisses. 

You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty 
after this. I don't care where you have lived or what 
you have seen; you never in all your life saw anything 
at all approaching him! He sat down in his chair and 
beat his knees and cried; he sat down in his chair and 
beat his knees and laughed; he sat down in his chair 
and beat his knees and laughed and cried together; he 
got out of his chair and hugged Meg; he got out of his 
chair and hugged Richard; he got out of his chair and 
hugged them both at once; he kept running up to Meg, 
and squeezing her fresh face between his hands and 
kissing it, going from her backwards not to lose sight 
of it, and running up again like a figure in a magic lan- 
tern; and whatever he did, he was constantly sitting 
himself down in this chair, and never stopping in it for 
one single moment; being — that's the truth — beside him- 
self with joy. 

"And to-morrow's your wedding-day, my pet!" cried 
Trotty. "Your real, happy wedding-day!" 

"To-day!" cried Richard, shaking hands with him. 
"To-day/ The Chimes are ringing in the New Year. 
Hear them!" 

They were ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they 
were ringing! Great Bells as they were; melodious, 



154 THE CHIMES. 

deep-mouthed, noble Bells; cast in no common metal; 
made by no common founder; when had they ever 
chimed like that, before! 

"But, to-day, my pet," said Trotty. "You and Rich- 
ard had some words to-day." 

"Because he's such a bad fellow, father," said Meg. 
"An't you, Richard? Such a headstrong, violent man! 
He'd have made no more of speaking his mind to that 
great Alderman, and putting him down I don't know 
where, than he would of — " 

" — Kissing Meg," suggested Richard. Doing it, 
too ! 

"No. Not a bit more," said Meg. " But I wouldn't 
let him, father. Where would have been the use !" 

" Richard, my boy!" cried Trotty. " You was turned 
up Trumps originally; and Trumps you must be, till 
you die ! But, you were crying by the fire to-night, 
my pet, when I came home ! Why did you cry by the 
fire ?" 

" I was thinking of the years we've passed together, 
father. Only that. And thinking you might miss me, 
and be lonely." 

Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair 
again, when the child, who had been awakened by the 
noise, came running in half -dressed. 

"Why, here she is!" cried Trotty, catching her up. 
" Here's little Lilian! Ha, ha, ha! Here we are and here 
we go! Oh, here we are and here we go again! And 
here we are and here we go! And Uncle Will, too!" 
Stopping in his trot to greet him heartily. "Oh, Uncle 
Will, the vision that I've had to-night, through lodging 
you! Oh, Uncle Will, the obligations that you've laid me 
under, by your coming, my good friend!" 

Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a band 
of music burst into the room, attended by a flock of 
neighbours, screaming, "A Happy New Year, Meg!" 
"A Happy Wedding!" " Many of 'em!" and other frag- 
mentary good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was 
a private friend of Trotty's) then stepped forward, and 
said: 

"Trotty Veck, my boy! It's got about that your 
daughter is going to be married to-morrow. There an't 
a soul that knows you that don't wish you well, or that 
knows her and don't wish her well. Or that knows you 



THE CHIMES. 155 

both, and don't wish you both all the happiness the New 
Year can bring. And here we are, to play it in and 
dance it in, accordingly." 

Which was received with a general shout. The Drum 
was rather drunk, by-the-bye; but, never mind., 

"What a happiness it is, I'm sure," said Trotty, "to 
be so esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are! 
It's all along of my dear daughter. She deserves it!" 

They were ready for a dance in half a second (Meg 
and Richard at the top); and the Drum was on the very 
brink of leathering away with all his power; when a 
combination of prodigious sounds was heard outside, 
and a good-humoured comely woman of some fifty 
years of age, or thereabouts, came running in, attended 
by a man bearing a stone pitcher of terrific size, and 
closely followed by the marrow-bones and cleavers, and 
the bells; not the Bells, but a portable collection, on a 
frame. 

Trotty said, "It's Mrs. Chickenstalker!" and sat down 
and beat his knees again. 

" Married, and not tell me, Meg!" cried the good 
woman. " Never! I couldn't rest on the last night of 
the Old Year without coming to wish you joy. I 
couldn't have done it, Meg. Not if I had been bed- 
ridden. So here I am; and as it's New Year's Eve, and 
the Eve of your wedding, too, my dear, I had a little flip 
made, and brought it with me." 

Mrs. Chickenstalker's notion of a little flip did honour 
to her character. The pitcher steamed and smoked and 
reeked like a volcano; and the man who had carried it 
was faint. 

"Mrs. Tugby!" said Trotty, who had been going 
round and round her, in an ecstasy. — " I should say, 
Chickenstalker — Bless your heart and soul! A happy 
New Year, and many of 'em! Mrs. Tugby," said Trotty 
when he had saluted her; — "I shoitld say, Chicken- 
stalker — This is William Fern and Lilian." 

The worthy dame, to his surprise, turned very pale 
and very red. 

" Not Lilian Fern whose mother died in Dorsetshire!" 
said she. 

Her uncle answered, "Yes," and meeting hastily, 
they exchanged some hurried words together; of which 
the upshot was, that Mrs. Chickenstalker shook him 



156 THE CHIMES. 

by both hands; saluted Trotty on his cheek again of 
her own free will; and took the child to her capacious 
breast. 

"Will Fern!" said Trotty, pulling on his right-hand 
muffler. "Not the friend that you was hoping to 
find?" 

"Ay!" returned Will, putting a hand on each of 
Trotty 's shoulders. "And like to prove a'most as good 
a friend, if that can be, as one I found." 

" Oh!" said Trotty. "Please to play up there. Will 
you have the goodness!" 

To the music of the band, the bells, the marrow-bones 
and cleavers, all at once; and while the Chimes were 
yet in lusty operation out of doors; Trotty making Meg 
and Richard second couple, led off Mrs. Chickenstalker 
down the dance, and danced it in a step unknown before 
or since; founded on his own peculiar trot. 

Had Trotty dreamed? Or, are his joys and sorrows, 
and the actors in them, but a dream; himself a dream; 
the teller of this tale a dreamer, waking but now? If it 
be so, O listener, dear to him in all his visions, try to 
bear in mind the stern realities from which these 
shadows come; and in your sphere — none is too wide, 
and none too limited for such an end — endeavour to cor- 
rect, improve, and soften them. So may the New Year 
be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose hap- 
piness depends on' you! So may each year be happier 
than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or 
sisterhood debarred their rightful share in what our 
Great Creator formed them to enjoy. 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, 

A FAIRY TALE OF HOME. 



CHIRP THE FIRST. 

The kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peery- 
bingle said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may 
leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn't 
say which of them began it; but, I say the kettle did. I 
ought to know, I hope? The kettle began it, full five 
minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the cor- 
ner, before the Cricket uttered a chirp. 

As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the con- 
vulsive little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away 
right and left with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, 
hadn't mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass be- 
fore the Cricket joined in at all! 

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows 
that I wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion 
of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any ac- 
count whatever. Nothing should induce me. But this 
is a question of facts. And the fact is, that the kettle 
begun it at least five minutes before the Cricket gave 
any sign of being in existence. Contradict me, and I'll 
say ten. 

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should 
have proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for 
this plain consideration — if I am to tell a story, I must 
begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin 
at the beginning, without beginning at the kettle? 

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of 

p157 






158 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

skill, you must understand, between the kettle and the 
Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came 
about. 

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and 
clicking over the* wet stones in a pair of pattens that 
worked innumerable rough impressions of the first propo- 
sition in Euclid all about the yard — Mrs. Peerybingle 
filled the kettle at the water butt. Presently returning, 
less the pattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall 
and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle 
on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mis- 
laid it for an instant; for, the water being uncomforta- 
bly cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state 
wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of sub- 
stance, patten rings included — had laid hold of Mrs. 
Peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her legs. And 
when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon 
our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point 
of stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear. 

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It 
wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it 
wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the 
knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air 
and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It 
was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at 
the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peery- 
bingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvey, and then 
with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better 
cause, dived sideways in — down to the very bottom of 
the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never 
made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the 
water, which the lid of that kettle employed against 
Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again. 

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then: 
carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking 
its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle as if 
it said, " I won't boil. Nothing shall induce me!" 

But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good-humour, 
dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and 
sat down before the kettle, laughing. Meantime, the 
jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the 
little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, until one 
might have thought he stood stock still before the Moor- 
ish Palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame. 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 159 

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, 
two to the second, all right and regular. But his suffer- 
ings when the clock was going to strike, were frightful 
to behold; and when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door 
in the Palace, and gave note six times, it shook him, 
each time, like a spectral voice — or like a something- 
wiry, plucking at his legs. 

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring 
noise among the weights and ropes below him had quite 
subsided, that this terrified Haymaker became himself 
again. Nor was he startled without reason; for these 
rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting 
in their operation, and I wonder very much how any 
set of men, but most of all how Dutchmen, ca,n have had 
a liking to invent them. There is a popular belief that 
Dutchmen love broad cases and much clothing for their 
own lower selves; and they might know better than to 
leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely. 

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to 
spend the evening. Now it was, that the kettle, grow- 
ing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible 
gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal 
snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite 
made up its mind yet to be good company. Now it was, 
that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its 
convivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all re- 
serve, and burst into a stream of song so cosy and hi- 
larious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the 
least idea of. 

So plain, too! Bless you, you might have understood 
it like a book — better than some books you and I can 
name, perhaps. With its warm breath gushing forth 
in a light cloud which merrily and gracefully ascended 
a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner as its 
own domestic heaven, it trolled its song with that strong 
energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and 
stirred upon the fire; and the lid itself, the recently re- 
bellious lid — such is the influence of a bright example 
— performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and 
dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of 
its twin brother. 

That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation 
and welcome to somebody out of doors: to somebody at 
that moment coming on, towards the snug small home 



160 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

and the crisp fire: there is no doubt whatever. Mrs. 
Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing before 
the hearth. It's a dark night, sang the kettle, and the 
rotten leaves are lying by the way; and above, all is 
mist and darkness, and below, all is mire and clay; and 
there's only one relief in all the sad and murky air; and 
I don't know that it is one, for it's nothing but a glare; 
of deep and angry crimson, where the sun and wind 
together; set a brand upon the clouds for being guilty 
of such weather; and the widest open country is a 
long dull streak of black; and there's hoar-frost on the 
finger-post, and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't 
water, and the water isn't free; and you couldn't say 
that anything is what it ought to be; but he's coming, 
coming, coming! — 

And here, if you like, the Cricket did chime in! with 
a Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way 
of chorus; with a voice, so astoundingly disproportion- 
ate to its size, as compared with the kettle (size! you 
couldn't see it!), that if it had then and there burst itself 
like an over-charged gun, if it had fallen a victim on 
the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, 
it would have seemed a natural and inevitable conse- 
quence, for which it had expressly laboured. 

The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. 
It persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket 
took first fiddle and kept it. Good Heaven, how it 
chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded 
through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer 
darkness like a star. There was an indescribable little 
trill and tremble in it at its loudest, which suggested its 
being carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its 
own intense enthusiasm. Yet they went very well to- 
gether, the Cricket and the kettle. The burden of the 
song was still the same; and louder, louder, louder still, 
they sang it in their emulation. 

The fair little listener — for fair she was, and young: 
though something of what is called the dumpling shape; 
but I don't myself object to that — lighted a candle, 
glanced at the Haymaker on the top of the clock, who 
was getting in a pretty average crop of minutes; and 
looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing 
to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. 
And my opinion is (and so would yours have been), that 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 161 

she might have looked a long way and seen nothing 
half so agreeable. When she came back, and sat down 
in her former seat, the Cricket and the kettle were still 
keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition. The 
kettle's weak side clearly being, that he didn't know 
when he was beat. 

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, 
chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum — 
m — m! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great 
top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the corner. 
Hum, hum, hum — m — m! Kettle sticking to him in his 
own way ; no idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp ! 
Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum — m — m ! 
Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp ! Cricket 
going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum — m — m ! Ket- 
tle not to be finished. Until at last, they got so jumbled 
together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the 
match, that whether the kettle chirped and the Cricket 
hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, 
or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have 
taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided 
with anything like certainty. But, of this, there is no 
doubt : that the kettle and the Cricket, at one and the 
same moment, and by some power of amalgamation best 
known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of 
comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone 
out through the window, and a long way down the 
lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person who, 
on the instant, approached towards it through the 
gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, literally in a 
twinkling, and cried, " Welcome home, old fellow ! 
Welcome home, my boy ! 

This end attained, the kettle being dead beat, boiled 
over, and was taken off the fire. Mrs. Perrybingle then 
went running to the door, where, what with the wheels 
of a cart, the tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the 
tearing in and out of an excited dog, and the surprising 
and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon 
the very What's-his-name to pay. 

Where the baby came from, or how- Mrs. Perrybingle 
got hold of it in that flash of time, I don't know. But 
a live baby there was, in Mrs. Perrybingle's arms ; and 
a pretty tolerable amount of pride she seemed to have 
in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a 
12 



162 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older 
than herself, who had to stoop a long way down to kiss 
her. But she was worth the trouble. Six foot six, 
with the lumbago, might have done it. 

" Oh, goodness, John ! " said Mrs. P. " What a state 
you're in with the weather ! " 

He was something the worse for it undeniably. The 
thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied 
thaw ; and, between the fog and fire together, there 
were rainbows in his very whiskers. 

" Why, you see, Dot," John made answer, slowly, as 
he unrolled a shawl from about his throat ; and warmed 
his hands; "it — it an't exactly summer weather. So, 
no wonder." 

"I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't 
like it," said Mrs. Perry bingle ; pouting in a way that 
clearly showed she did like it very much. 

" Why, what else are you ?" returned John, looking 
down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as 
light a squeeze as his hugh hand and arm could give. 
"A dot and " — here he glanced at the baby — "a dot and 
carry — I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it ; but I 
was very near a joke. I don't know as ever I was 



nearer." 



He was often near to something or other very clever, 
by his own account ; this lumbering, slow, honest John ; 
this John so heavy, but so light in spirit ; so rough upon 
the surface, but so gentle at the core ; so dull without, 
so quick within ; so stolid, but so good ! Oh, Mother 
Nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that 
hid itself in this poor Carrier's breast — he was but a 
Carrier by the way — and we can bear to have them 
talking prose, and leading lives of prose; and bear to 
bless thee for their company. 

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure and 
her baby in her arms: a very doll of a baby: glancing 
with a coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclin- 
ing her delicate little head just enough on one side to 
let it rest in an odd, half-natural, half-affected, wholly 
nestling and agreeable manner, on the great rugged 
figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with 
his tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his 
rude support to her slight need, and make his burly 
middle-age a leaning-staff not inappropriate to he r 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 163 

blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe how Tilly 
Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took 
special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this 
grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide 
open, and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if 
it were air. Nor was it less agreeable to observe how 
John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the 
aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of 
touching the infant, as if he thought he might crack it; 
and bending down, surveyed it from a safe distance, 
with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an amiable mastiff 
might be supposed to show, if he found himself, one 
day, the father of a young canary. 

" An't he beautiful, John? Don't he look precious in 
his sleep?" 

"Very precious," said John. "Very much so. He 
generally is asleep, an't he?" 

"Lor, John! Good gracious, no!" 

" Oh," said John, pondering. " I thought his eyes was 
generally shut. Halloa!" - 

"Goodness, John, how you startle one!" 

" It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way!" said 
the astonished Carrier, "is it? See how he's winking 
with both of 'em at once! and look at his mouth! Why, 
he's gasping like a gold and silver fish!" 

"You don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said 
Dot, with all the dignity of an experienced matron. ' ' But 
how should you know what little complaints children 
are troubled with, John! You wouldn't so much as know 
their names, you stupid fellow." And when she had 
turned the baby over on her left arm, and had slapped 
its back as a restorative, she pinched her husband's ear, 
laughing. 

" No," said John, pulling off his outer coat. " It's very 
true, Dot. I don't know much about it. I only know 
that I've been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to- 
night. It's been blowing northeast, straight into the 
the cart, the whole way home." 

"Poor old man, so it has!" cried Mrs. Peerybingle, 
instantly becoming very active. " Here! take the 
precious darling, Tilly, while I make myself of some use. 
Bless it, I could smother it with kissing it, I could! Hie, 
then, good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only let me make the 
tea first, John; and then I'll help you with the parcels, 



164 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

like a busy bee. ' How doth the little ' — and all the rest 
of it, you know, John. Did you ever learn ' how doth 
the little/ when you went to school, John?" 

" Not to quite know it," John returned. " I was very 
near it once. But I should only have spoiled it, I dare 
say." 

"Ha, ha," laughed Dot. She had the blithest little 
laugh you ever heard. " What a dear old darling of a 
dunce you are, John, to be sure!" 

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see 
that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing 
to and fro before the door and window, like a Will-of-the- 
Wisp, took due care of the horse; who was fatter than 
you would quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and 
so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. 
Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family 
in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in 
and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing 
a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was 
being rubbed down at the stable-door; now, feigning to 
make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously 
bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek 
from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the 
fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to 
her Countenance; now, Exhibiting an obtrusive interest 
in the baby; now, going round and round upon the 
hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself 
for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that 
nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, 
as if he had just remembered an appointment, and was 
off, at a round trot, to keep it. 

"There! There's the tea-pot, ready on the hob!" said 
Dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. 
"And there's the cold knuckle of ham; and there's the 
butter; and there's the crusty loaf, and all! Here's a 
clothes-basket for the small parcels, John, if you've got 
any there — where are you, John? Don't let the dear 
child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever you do!" 

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her re- 
jecting the caution with some vivacity, that she had a 
rare and surprising talent for getting this baby into dif- 
ficulties: and had several times imperilled its short life, 
in a quiet way peculiarly her own. She was of a spare 
and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 165 

garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding 
off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were 
loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for the par- 
tial development, on all possible occasions, of some flannel 
vestment of a singular structure; also for affording 
glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or pair of 
stays, in colour a dead- green. Being always in a state of 
gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, besides, 
in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfec- 
tions and the baby's, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of 
judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her 
head and to her heart; and though these did less honour 
to the baby's head, which they were the occasional 
means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, 
stair-rails, bedposts, and other foreign substances, still 
they were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy's constant 
astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and 
installed in such a comfortable home. For the maternal 
and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and 
Tilly had been bred by public charity, a foundling; 
which word, though only differing from fondling by one 
vowel's length, is very different in meaning, and ex- 
presses quite another thing. 

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with 
her husband, tugging at the clothes-basket and making 
the most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he 
carried it), would have amused you, almost as much as 
it amused him. It may have entertained the Cricket, 
too, for anything I know; but, certainly, it now began 
to chirp again, vehemently. 

•'Heyday!" said John, in his slow way. " It's merrier 
than ever to-night, I think." 

"And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It 
always has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth, 
is the luckiest thing in all the world!" 

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the 
thought into his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, 
and he quite agreed with her. But it was probably one 
of his narrow escapes, for he said nothing. 

"The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, 
was on that night when you brought me home — when you 
brought me to my new home here; its little mistress. 
Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?" 

Oh, yes. John remembered. I should think so! 



166 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

" Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so 
full of promise and encouragement. It seemed to say, 
you would be kind and gentle with me, and would not 
expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to find an old 
head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife." 

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and 
then the head, as though he would have said No, no; he 
had had no such expectation; he had been quite content 
to take them as they were. And really he had reason. 
They were very comely. 

"It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so: 
for you have ever been, I am sure, the best, the most 
considerate, the most affectionate of husbands to me. 
This has been a happy home, John; and I love the 
Cricket for its sake!" 

" Why, so do I, then;" said the Carrier. "So do I, 
Dot." . 

" I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the 
many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Some- 
times, in the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary 
and down-hearted, John — before baby was here to keep 
me company and make the house gay — when I have 
thought how lonely you would be if I should die; how 
lonely I should be, if I could know that you had lost 
me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has 
seemed to tell me of another little voice, so sweet, so 
very dear to me, before whose coming sound my trouble 
vanished like a dream. And when I used to fear — I did 
fear once, John, I was very young, you know — that 
ours might prove an ill-assorted marriage, I being such 
a child, and jou more like my guardian than my hus- 
band; and that you might not, however hard you tried, 
be able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed 
you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp, has cheered me up 
again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. I 
was thinking of these things to-night, dear, when I sat 
expecting you; and I love the Cricket for their sake!" 

"And so do I," repeated John.. "But, Dot? I hope 
and pray that I might learn to love you? How you 
talk! I had learned that, long before I brought you 
here, to be the Cricket's little mistress, Dot!" 

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked 
up at him with an agitated face, as if she would have 
told him something. Next moment, she was down upon 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 167 

her knees before the basket; speaking in a sprightly 
voice, and busy with the parcels. 

" There are not many of them to-night, John, but I 
saw some goods behind the cart, just now; and though 
they give more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well; 
so we have no reason to grumble, have we? Besides, you 
have been delivering, I dare say, as you came along?" 

" Oh, yes," John said. "A good many." 

" Why, what's this round box? Heart alive, John, it's 
a wedding-cake!" 

" Leave a woman alone to find out that," said John, 
admiringly. " Now a man would never have thought of 
it! Whereas, it's my belief, that if you was to pack a 
wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a turn-up bedstead, 
or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a 
woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I 
called for it at the pastry-cook's." 

"And it weighs I don't know what — whole hundred- 
weights!" cried Dot, making a great demonstration of 
trying to lift it. "Whose is it, John? Where is it 
going?" 

" Read the writing on the other side," said John. 

" Why, John! My goodness, John!" 

" Ah! who'd have thought it!" John returned. 

" You never mean to say," pursued Dot, sitting on the 
floor and shaking her head at him, " that it's Gruff and 
Tackleton the toy maker!" 

John nodded. 

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. 
Not in assent — in dumb and pitying amazement; screw- 
ing up her lips, the while, with all their little force 
(they were never made for screwing up; I am clear of 
that), and looking the good Carrier through and through, 
in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the meantime, 
who had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of 
current conversation for the delectation of the baby, 
with all the sense struck out of them, and all the nouns 
changed into the plural number, inquired aloud of that 
young creature, Was it Gruff s and Tackletons the toy- 
makers then, and Would it call at Pastry-cooks for wed- 
ding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when 
its fathers brought them home; and so on. 

" And that is really to come about!" said Dot. "Why 
she and I were girls at school together, John." 



168 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

He might have been thinking of her, or nearly think- 
ing of her, perhaps, as she was in that same school-time. 
He looked upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he 
made no answer. 

" And he's as old! As unlike her! — Why, how many 
years older than you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?" 

" How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night 
at one sitting, than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in 
four, I wonder!" replied John, good-humouredly, as he 
drew a chair to the round table, and began at the cold 
ham. "As to eating, I eat but little; but that little I 
I enjoy, Dot." 

Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of 
his innocent delusions (for his appetite was always ob- 
stinate, and flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in' 
the face of his little wife, who stood among the parcels, 
pushing the cake-box slowly from her with her foot, and 
never once looked, though her eyes were cast down 
too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful 
of. Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike 
of the tea and John (although he called to her, and rapped 
the table with his knife to startle her), until he rose and 
touched her on the arm; when she looked at him for 
a moment, and hurried to her place behind the tea- 
board, laughing at her negligence. But not as she had 
laughed before. The manner and the music were quite 
changed. 

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room 
was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it. 

" So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?" she 
said, breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier 
had devoted to the practical illustration of one part of 
his favourite sentiment — certainly enjoying what he ate, 
if it couldn't be admitted that he ate but little. " So 
these are all the parcels, are they, John?" 

"That's all," said John. "Why— no— I—" laying 
down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath. " I 
declare — I've clean forgotten the old gentleman!" 

" The old gentleman?" 

"In the cart," said John. "He was asleep, among 
the straw, the last time I saw him. I've very nearly 
remembered him, twice, since I came in; but he went 
out of my head again. Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse 
up! That's my hearty!" 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 169 

John said these latter words outside the door, whither 
he had hurried with the candle in his hand. 

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference 
to The Old Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified 
imagination certain associations of a religious nature 
with the phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily rising 
from the low chair by the fire to seek protection near 
the skirt of her mistress, and coming into contact as 
she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she 
instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the 
only offensive instrument within her reach. This in- 
strument happening to be the baby, great commotion 
and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather 
tended to increase; for that good dog, more thoughtful 
than his master, had, it seemed, been watching the old 
gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a 
few young poplar trees that were tied up behind the 
cart; and he still attended on him very closely, worry- 
ing his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the 
buttons. 

"You're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir," said 
John, when tranquillity was restored; in the meantime 
the old gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motion- 
less, in the centre of the room; " that I have half a mind 
to ask you where the other six are — only that would be 
a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very near though," 
murmured the Carrier, with a chuckle; "very near!" 

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, 
singularly bold and well defined for an old man, and 
dark, bright, penetrating eyes, looked round with a 
smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by gravely inclin- 
ing his head. 

His garb was very quaint and odd — a long, long way 
behind the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his 
hand he held a great brown club or walking-stick; and 
striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became 
a chair. On which he sat down, quite composedly. 

"There!" said the Carrier, turning to his wife. 
"That's the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! 
Upright as a milestone, and almost as deaf." 

" Sitting in the open air, John!" 

"In the open air," replied the Carrier, "just at dusk. 
'Carriage Paid,' he said; and gave me eighteenpence. 
Then he got in. And there he is." 






170 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

"He's going, John, I think!" 

Not at all. He was only going to speak. 

" If you please, I was to be left till called for," said 
the Stranger, mildly. "Don't mind me." 

With that he took a pair of spectacles from one of 
his large pockets, and a book from another, and leis- 
urely began to read. Making no more of Boxer than if 
he had been a house lamb ! 

The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of per- 
plexity. The Stranger raised his head; and glancing 
from the latter to the former, said: 

" Your daughter, my good friend?" 

" Wife," returned John. 

" Niece?" said the Stranger. 

"Wife," roared John. 

"Indeed?" observed the Stranger. "Surely? Very 
young!" 

He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. 
But, before he could have read two lines, he again inter- 
rupted himself, to say: 

" Baby, yours?" 

John gave him a gigantic nod: equivalent to an an- 
swer in the affirmative, delivered through a speaking- 
trumpet. 

"Girl?" 

"Bo-o-oy!" roared John. 

"Also very young, eh?" 

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. "Two months 
and three da-ays. Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! 
Took very fine-ly ! Considered, by the doctors, a remark- 
ably beautiful chi-ild! Equal to the general run of 
children at five months o-ld! Takes notice, in a way 
quite won-der-ful! May seem impossible to you, but 
feel his legs al-ready!" 

Here the breathless little mother, who had been 
shrieking these short sentences into the old man's ear, 
until her pretty face was crimsoned, held up the Baby 
before him as a stubborn and triumphant fact; while 
Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of "Ketcher, 
Ketcher" — which sounded like some unknown words, 
adapted to a popular Sneeze — performed some cow- 
like gambols around that all unconscious Innocent. 

"Hark! He's called for, sure enough," said John. 
" There's somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly." 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 171 

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from 
without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch 
that any one could lift if he chose — and a good many 
people did choose, for all kinds of neighbours liked to 
lave a cheerful word or two with the Carrier, though 
^ie was no great talker himself. Being opened, it gave 
admission tQ a little, meager, thoughtful, dingy-faced 
man, who seemed to have made himself a great-coat 
from the sackcloth covering of some old box; for, 
when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather 
out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment the 
inscription G & T in large black capitals. Also the 
word " glass " in bold characters. 

"Good-evening, John!" said the little man. "Good- 
evening, mum. Good-evening, Tilly. Good-evening, 
Unbeknown! How's Baby, Mum? Boxer's pretty well, 
I hope? 5 ' 

"All thriving, Caleb," replied Dot. "I am sure you 
need only look at the dear child, for one, to know 
that." 

" And I'm sure I only need look at you for another," 
said Caleb. 

He didn't look at her, though; he had a wandering 
and thoughtful eye which seemed to be always project- 
ing itself into some other time and place, no matter what 
he said; a description which will equally apply to his 
voice. 

"Or at John for another," said Caleb. " Or at Tilly, 
as far as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer." 

"Busy just now, Caleb?" asked the Carrier. 

"Why, pretty well, John," he returned, with the dis- 
traught air of a man who was casting about for the 
Philosopher's stone, at least. "Pretty much so. There's 
rather a run on Noah's Arks at present. I could have 
wished to improve upon the Family, but I don't see how 
it's to be done at the price. It would be a satisfaction to 
one's mind, to make it clearer which was Shems and 
Hams, and which was Wives. Flies an't on that scale 
neither, as compared with elephants, you know! Ah! 
well! Have you got anything in the parcel line for me, 
John?" 

The Carrier put his hand into the pocket of the coat 
he had taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved 
in moss and paper, a tiny flower-pot. 






172 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

" There it is !" he said, adjusting it with great care. 
" Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!" 

Caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked 
him. 

"Dear, Caleb," said the Carrier. "Very dear at this 
season." 

" Never mind that. It would be cheap Jjo me, what- 
ever it cost/' returned the little man. " Anything else, 
John?" 

" A small box," replied the Carrier. " Here you are!" 

" ' For Caleb Plummer,' " said the little man, spelling 
out the direction. " ' With Cash.' With Cash, John? I 
don't think it's for me." 

"With Care," returned the Carrier, looking over his 
shoulder. " Where do you make out cash?" 

"Oh! To be sure!" said Caleb. " It's all right. With 
care! Yes, yes; that's mine. It might have been with 
cash, indeed, if my dear Boy in the Golden South Amer- 
icas had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn't 
you? You needn't say you did. I know, of course. 
'Caleb Plummer. With care.' Yes, yes, it's all right. 
It's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughter's work. I wish 
it was her own sight in a box, John." 

" I wish it was, or could be!" cried the Carrier. 

"Thankee," said the little man. "You speak very 
hearty. To think that she should never see the Dolls — 
and them a staring at her, so bold, all day long! That's 
where it cuts. What's the damage, John?" 

"I'll damage you," said John, "if you inquire. Dot! 
Very near?" 

"Well! It's like you to say so," observed the little 
man. " It's your kind way. Let me see. I think that's 
all." 

" I think not," said the Carrier. " Try again." 

" Something for our Governor, eh?" said Caleb, after 
pondering a little while. "To be sure. That's what I 
came for; but my head's so running on them Arks and 
things! He hasn't been here, has he?" 

"Not he," returned the Carrier. "He's too busy, 
courting." 

"He's coming round, though," said Caleb; "for he 
told me to keep on the near side of the road going home, 
and it was ten to one he'd take me up. I had better go, 
by-the-bye. — You couldn't have the goodness to let me 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 173 

pinch Boxer's tail, mum, for half a moment, could you?" 

' ' Why, Caleb ! What a question !" 

"Oh, never mind, mum," said the little man. "He 
mightn't like it, perhaps. There's a small order just 
come in, for barking dogs; and I should wish to go as 
close to Natur' as I could for sixpence. That's all. Never 
mind, mum." 

It happened, opportunely, that Boxer, without re- 
ceiving the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great 
zeal. But, as this implied the approach of some new 
visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the life to a 
more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and 
took a hurried leave. He might have spared himself 
the trouble, for he met the visitor upon the threshold. 

"Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I'll take 
you home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More 
of my service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every 
day! Better, too, if possible! And younger," mused the 
speaker in a low voice; "that's the devil of it!" 

" I should be astonished at your paying compliments, 
Mr. Tackleton," said Dot, not with the best grace in the 
world, "but for your condition." 

" You know all about it then?" 

" I have got myself to believe it somehow," said Dot. 

"After a hard struggle, I suppose?" 

"Very." 

Tackleton, the Toy merchant, pretty generally known 
as Gruff and Tackleton — for that was the firm, though 
Gruff had been bought out long ago; only leaving his 
name, and as some said his nature, according to its Dic- 
tionary meaning, in the business — Tackleton the Toy 
merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite 
misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians. If they 
had made him a Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or 
a Sheriff's Officer, or a Broker, he might have sown his 
discontented oats in his youth, and, after having had 
the full-run of himself in ill-natured transactions, might 
have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake of a little 
freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the 
peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic 
Ogre, who had been living on children all his life, and 
was their implacable enemy. He despised all toys; 
wouldn't have bought one for the world; delighted, in his 
malice, to insinuate grim expressions into the faces of 



174 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

brown paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen 
who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, movable old 
ladies who darned stockings or carved pies; and other 
like samples of his stock in trade. In appalling masks; 
hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks in Boxes; Vampire Kites; 
demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn't lie down, and were 
perpetually flying forward to stare infants out of counte- 
nance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only 
relief and safety-valve. He was great in such inven- 
tions. Anything suggestive of a Pony nightmare, was 
delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he took 
to that toy very kindly) by getting up Goblin slides for 
magic lanterns, whereupon the Powers of Darkness were 
depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with human 
faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he had 
sunk quite a little capital; and though no painter him- 
self, he could indicate, for the instruction of his artists, 
with a piece of chalk, a certain furtive leer for the coun- 
tenances of those monsters, which was safe to destroy 
the peace of mind of any young gentleman between the 
ages of six and eleven, for the whole Christmas or Mid- 
summer Vacation. 

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in 
other things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that 
within the great green cape, which reached down to the 
calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an 
uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as 
choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever 
stood in a pair of bull-headed looking boots with mahog- 
any-coloured tops. 

Still, Tackleton, the toy merchant, was going to be 
married. In spite of all" this, he was going to be mar- 
ried. And to a young wife, too, a beautiful young wife. 

He didn't look much like a Bridegroom, as he stood in 
the Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a 
screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of 
his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of 
his pockets, and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned self 
peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like 
the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. 
But a Bridegroom he designed to be. 

" In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day 
of the first month in the year. That's my wedding 
day/' said Tackleton, 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 175 

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, 
and one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly 
shut was always the expressive eye? I don't think I 
did. 

"That's my wedding-day!" said Tackleton, rattling 
his money. 

"Why, it's our wedding-day too/' exclaimed the Car- 
rier. 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. "Odd! You're just 
such another couple. Just!" 

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion 
is not to be described. What next? His imagination 
would compass the possibility of just such another Baby, 
perhaps. The man was mad. 

"I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton, 
nudging the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a 
little apart, " You'll come to the wedding? We're in the 
same boat, you know." 

" How in the same boat?" inquired the Carrier. 

" A little disparity you know," said Tackleton, with 
another nudge. " Come and spend an evening with us, 
beforehand." 

"Why," demanded John, astonished at this pressing 
hospitality. 

"Why?" returned the other. "That's a new way of 
receiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure — sociability, 
you know, and all that?" 

" I thought you were never sociable," said John, in 
his plain way. " 

"Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with 
you, I see," said Tackleton. "Why, then, the truth is 
you have a — what tea-drinking people call a sort of a 
comfortable appearance together, you and your wife. 
We know better, you know, but — " 

" No, we don't know better," interposed John. " What 
are you talking about?" 

"Well! We don't know better then," said Tackleton. 
" We'll agree that we don't. As you like; what does it 
matter? I was going to say, as you have that sort of 
appearance, your company will produce a favourable 
effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I 
don't think your good lady's very friendly to me, in this 
matter, still she can't help herself from falling into my 
views, for there's a compactness and cosiness of appear- 






1?6 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

ance about her that always tells, even in an indifferent 
case. You'll say you'll come?" 

"We have arranged to keep our wedding-day (as far 
as that goes) at home/' said John. "We have made 
the promise to ourselves these six months. We think, 
you see, that home — " 

" Bah! what's home?" cried Tackleton. " Four walls 
and a ceiling! (Why don't you kill that Cricket; 1 
would! I always do. I hate their noise.) There are 
four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!" 

" You kill your Crickets, eh?" said John. 

"Scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his 
heel heavily on the floor. " You'll say you'll come? It's 
as much your interest as mine, you know, that the 
women should persuade each other that they're quiet 
and contented, and couldn't be better off. I know their 
way. Whatever one woman says, another woman is 
determined to clinch, always. There's that spirit of 
emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my 
wife, ' I'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's 
the best husband in the world, and I dote on him/ my 
wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half 
believe it." 

"Do you mean to say she don't, then?" asked the 
Carrier. 

' ( Don't!" cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. 
"Don't what?" 

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, "dote 
upon you." But, happening to meet the half -closed eye, 
as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the 
cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt 
it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be 
doted on, that he substituted, "that she don't believe 
it?" 

" Ah, you dog! You're joking," said Tackleton. 

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full 
drift of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious 
manner, that he was obliged to be a little more ex- 
planatory. 

"I have the humour," said Tackleton: holding up the 
fingers of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to 
imply 'there I am, Tackleton to wit:' "I have the 
humour, sir, to marry a young wife, and a pretty wife:" 
here he rapped his little finger, to express the Bride; 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 177 

not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. 
"I'm able to gratify that humour and I do. It's my 
whim. But — now look there!" 

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, 
before the fire; leaning her dimpled chin upon her 
hand, and watching the bright blaze. The Carrier 
looked at her, and then at him, and then at her, and 
then at him again. 

" She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know," said 
Tackleton; ' ' and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, 
is quite enough for me. But do you think there's any- 
thing more in it?" 

"I think," observed the Carrier, "that I should chuck 
any man out of window,, who said there wasn't." 

" Exactly so," returned the other with an unusual 
alacrity of assent. " To be sure! Doubtless you would. 
Of course. I'm certain of it. Good-night. Pleasant 
dreams!" 

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable 
and uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn't help 
showing it, in his manner. 

" Good-night, my dear friend!" said Tackleton, com- 
passionately. " I'm off. We're exactly alike, in reality, 
I see. You won't give us to-morrow evening? Well! 
Next day you go out visiting, I know. I'll meet you 
there, and bring my wife that is to be. It'll do her good. 
You're agreeable? Thankee. What's that!" 

It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife: a loud, 
sharp, sudden cry, that made the room ring, like a glass 
vessel. She had risen from her seat, and stood like one 
transfixed by terror and surprise. The Stranger had 
advanced towards the fire to warm himself, and stood 
within a short stride of her chair. But quite still. 

"Dot!" cried the Carrier. "Mary! Darling! What's 
the matter?" 

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who 
had been dozing on the cake-box, in the first imperfect 
recovery of his suspended presence of mind, seized Miss 
Slowboy by the hair of her head, but immediately 
apologised. 

"Mary!" exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his 
arms. "Are you ill! What is it? Tell me, dear!" 

She only answered by beating her hands together, and 
falling into a wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from 

13 



178 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

his grasp upon the ground, she covered her face with 
her apron, and wept bitterly. And then she laughed 
again, and then she cried again, and then she said how 
cold she was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire, 
where she sat down as before. The old man standing, 
as before, quite still. 

"I'm better, John," she said. "I'm quite well now 
—I—" 

"John!" But John was on the other side of her. 
Why turn her face towards the strange old gentleman, 
as if addressing him! Was her brain wandering? 

" Only a fancy, John, dear — a kind of shock — a some- 
thing coming suddenly before my eyes — I don't know 
what it was. It's quite gone, quite gone." 

"I'm glad it's gone," muttered Tackleton, turning the 
expressive eye all round the room. " I wonder where 
it's gone, and what it was. Humph! Caleb, come here! 
Who's that with the grey hair?" 

"I don't know, sir," returned Caleb, in a whisper. 
"Never see him before, in all my life. A beautiful 
figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model. With a 
screw-jaw opening down into his waistcoat, he'd be 
lovely." 

"Not ugly enough," said Tackleton. 

"Or for a fire-box, either," observed Caleb, in deep 
contemplation, "what a model! Unscrew his head to 
put the matches in; turn him heels up'ards for the light; 
and what a fire-box for a gentleman's mantel-shelf, just 
as he stands !" 

"Not half ugly enough," said Tackleton. "Nothing 
in him at all. Come! Bring that box! All right now, 
I hope?" 

" Oh, quite gone! Quite gone!" said the little woman, 
waving him hurriedly away. " Good-night!" 

"Good-night," said Tackleton. " Good-night, John 
Peerybingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. 
Let it fall and I'll murder you! Dark as pitch, and 
weather worse than ever, eh? Good-night!" 

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went 
out at the door; followed by Caleb with the wedding- 
cake on his head. 

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little 
wife, and so busily engaged in soothing and tending 
her, that he had scarcely been conscious of the Stranger's 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 179 

presence, until now, when he again stood there, their 
only guest. 

"He don't belong to them, you see," said John. "I 
must give him a hint to go." 

"I beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, 
advancing to him; " the more so, as I fear your wife has 
not been well; but the Attendant whom my infirmity," 
he touched his ears, and shook his head, "renders 
almost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear there 
must be some mistake. The bad night which made the 
shelter of your comfortable cart (may I never have a 
worse!) so acceptable, is still as bad as ever. Would 
you, in your kindness, suffer me to rent a bed here?" 

"Yes, yes," cried Dot. "Yes! Certainly!" 

"Oh!" said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of 
this consent. "Well! I don't object; but, still I'm not 
quite sure that — " 

" Hush!" she interrupted. " Dear John!" 

" Why, he's stone deaf," urged John. 

" I know he is, but — Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! 
I'll make him up a bed directly, John." 

As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, 
and the agitation of her manner, were so strange, that 
the Carrier stood looking after her, quite confounded. 

" Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!" cried Miss 
Slowboy to the Baby; " and did its hair grow brown and 
curly, when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a 
precious Pets, a sitting by the fires!" 

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to 
trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and 
confusion, the Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, 
found himself mentally repeating even these absurd 
words, many times. So many times, that he got them 
by heart, and was still conning them over and over, like 
a lesson, when Tilly, after administering as much fric- 
tion to the little bald head with her hand as she thought 
wholesome (according to the practice of nurses), had 
once more tied the Baby's cap on. 

"And frighten it a precious Pets, a sitting by the 
fires. What frightened Dot, I wonder!" mused the Car- 
rier, pacing to and fro. 

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy 
merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefi- 
nite uneasiness. For/ Tackleton was quick and sly; 






180 THE CRICKET ON" THE HEARTH. 

and he had that painful sense, himself, of being a man 
of slow perception, that a broken hint was always wor- 
rying to him. He certainly had no intention in his 
mind of linking anything that Tackleton had said, with 
the unusual conduct of his wife, but the two subjects of 
reflection came into his mind together, and he could not 
keep them asunder. 

The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, de- 
clining all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, 
Dot — quite well again, she said, quite well again — ar- 
ranged the great chair in the chimney corner for her 
husband; filled his pipe and gave it to him; and took 
her usual little stool beside him on the hearth. 

She always would sit on that little stool. I think she 
must have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, 
wheedling little stool. 

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I 
should say, in the four quarters of the globe. To see 
her put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and then 
blow down the pipe to clear the tube, and, when she had 
done so, affect to think that there was really something 
in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her 
eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her 
capital little face, as she looked down it, was quite a 
brilliant thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect mis- 
tress of the subject ; and her lighting of the pipe, 
with a wisp of paper, when the Carrier had it in his 
mouth — going so very near his nose, and yet not scorch- 
ing it — was Art, high Art. 

And the Cricket and the Kettle, tuning up again, ac- 
knowledged it! The bright fire, blazing up again, ac- 
knowledged it! The little Mower on the clock, in his 
unheeded work, acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his 
smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged 
it, the readiest of all. 

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old 
pipe, and as the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire 
gleamed, and as the Cricket chirped; that Genius of his 
Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket was) came out, 
in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many 
forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all 
sizes, filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, 
running on before him, gathering flowers, in the fields; 
coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 181 

pleading of his own rough image; newly- married Dots, 
alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession 
of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by 
fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; 
matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots 
of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, en- 
circled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; with- 
ered Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as they crept 
along. Old Carriers, too, appeared, with blind old 
Boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger 
drivers ("Peerybingle Brothers," on the tilt); and sick 
old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of 
dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard. 
And as the Cricket showed him all these things — he saw 
them plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire — 
the Carrier's heart grew light and happy, and he thanked 
his Household Gods with all his might, and cared no 
more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do. 

But, what was that young figure of a man, which the 
same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which re- 
mained there, singly and alone? Why did it linger still, 
so near her, with its arm upon the chimney-piece, ever 
repeating, " Married! and not to me!" 

Oh, Dot! Oh, failing Dot! There is no place for it in 
all your husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen 
on his hearth ! 



CHIRP THE SECOND. 

Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone 
by themselves, as the Story Books say — and my blessing, 
with yours to back it, I hope, on the Story Books, for 
saying anything in this workaday world! — Caleb Plum- 
mer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by them- 
selves, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, 
which was, in truth, no better than a pimple on the 
prominent red-brick nose of Gruff and Tackleton. The 
premises of Gruff and Tackleton were the great feature 
of the street; but you might have knocked down Caleb 
Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or two, and carried 
off the pieces in a cart. 

If any one had done the dwelling-house of Caleb 







' 



182 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

Plummer the honour to miss it after such an inroad, it 
would have been, no doubt, to commend its demolition 
as a vast improvement. It stuck to the premises of 
Gruff and Tackleton like a barnacle to a ship's keel, or 
a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toadstools to the 
stem of a tree. But it # was the germ from which the 
full-grown trunk of Gruff and Tackleton had sprung; 
and under its crazy roof, the Gruff before last, had, in a 
small way, made toys for a generation of old boys and 
girls, who had played with them, and found them out, 
and broken them, and gone to sleep. 

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter 
lived here. I should have said that Caleb lived here, 
and his poor Blind Daughter somewhere else — in an en- 
chanted home of Caleb's furnishing, where scarcity and 
shabbiness were not, and trouble never entered. Caleb 
was no sorcerer, but in the only magic art that still re- 
mains to us, the magic of devoted, deathless love, Na- 
ture had been the mistress of his study ; and from her 
teaching, all the wonder came. 

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discol- 
oured, walls blotched and bare of plaster here and there, 
high crevices unstopped and widening every day, beams 
mouldering and tending downward. The Blind Girl 
never knew that iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper 
peeling off; the size, and shape, and true proportion of 
the dwelling, withering away. The Blind Girl never 
knew that ugly shapes of delf and earthenware were on 
the board ; that sorrow and faint-heartedness were in 
the house; that Caleb's scanty hairs were turning greyer 
and more grey, before her sightless face. The Blind 
Girl never knew they had a master, cold, exacting, and 
uninterested — never knew that Tackleton wg,s Tackle- 
ton in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric hu- 
mourist who loved to have his jest with them, and who, 
while he was the Guardian Angel of their lives, dis- 
dained to hear one word of thankfulness. 

And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple 
father! But he, too, had a Cricket on his Hearth; and 
listening sadly to its music when the motherless Blind 
Child was very young, that Spirit had inspired him with 
the thought that even her great deprivation might be 
almost changed into a blessing, and the girl made happy 
by these little means. For all the Cricket tribe are po- 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 183 

tent Spirits, even though the people who hold converse 
with them do not know it (which is frequently the case), 
and there are not in the unseen world, voices more gen- 
tle and more true, that may be so implicitly relied on, 
or that are so certain to give none but tenderest counsel, 
as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and 
the Hearth address themselves to human kind. 

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their 
usual working-room, which served them for their ordi- 
nary living-room as well; and a strange place it was. 
There were houses in it, finished and unfinished, for 
Dolls of all stations in life. Suburban tenements for 
Dolls of moderate means; kitchens and single apart- 
ments for Dolls of the lower classes ; capital town resi- 
dences for Dolls of high estate. Some of these estab- 
lishments were already furnished according to estimate, 
with a view to the convenience of Dolls of limited in- 
come ; others could be fitted on the most expensive 
scale, at a moment's notice, from whole shelves of chairs 
and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and upholstery. The 
nobility and gentry and public in general, for whose 
accommodation these tenements were designed, lay, 
here and there, in baskets, staring straight up at the 
ceiling; but, in denoting their degrees in society, and 
confining them to their respective stations (which ex- 
perience shows to be lamentably difficult in real life), 
the makers of these Dolls had far improved on Nature, 
who is often fro ward and perverse; for they, not rest- 
ing on such arbitrary marks as satin, cotton-print, and 
bits of rag, had superadded striking personal differences 
which allowed of no mistake. Thus, the Doll-lady of 
distinction had wax limbs of perfect symmetry; but 
only she and her compeers. The next grade in the so- 
cial scale being made of leather, and the next of coarse 
linen stuff. As to the common people, they had just so 
many matches out of tinder-boxes, for their arms and 
legs, and there they were — established in their sphere at 
once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it. 

There were various other samples of his handicraft 
besides Dolls, in Caleb Plummer's room. There were 
Noah's Arks, in which the Birds and Beasts were an un- 
commonly tight fit, I assure you: though they could be 
crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken 
into the smallest compass. By a bold poetical licence, 






184 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 



most of these Noah's Arks had knockers on the doors; 
inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of 
morning callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant finish to 
the outside of the building. There were scores of mel- 
ancholy little carts, which, when the wheels went round, 
performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, 
drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of can- 
non, shields, swords, spears, and guns. There were little 
tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming up high 
obstacles of red-tape, and coming down, head first, on 
the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen 
of respectable, not to say venerable appearance, insanely 
flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in 
their own street doors. There were beasts of all sorts; 
horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted 
barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to 
the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it 
would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens 
of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all 
sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it 
would have been no easy task to mention any human 
folly, vice, or weakness that had not its type, immediate 
or remote, in Caleb Plummer's room. And not in an 
exaggerated form, for very little handles will move men 
and women to as strange performances, as any Toy was 
ever made to undertake. 

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daugh- 
ter sat at work. The Blind Girl busy as a Doll's dress- 
maker; Caleb painting and glazing the four-pair front 
of a desirable family mansion. 

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face, and his 
absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have set well 
on some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight 
an odd contrast to his occupation, and the trivialities 
about him. But trivial things, invented and pursued 
for bread, become very serious matters of fact; and, 
apart from this consideration, I am not at all prepared 
to say, myself, that if Caleb had been a Lord Chamber- 
lain, or a Member of Parliament, or a lawyer, or even a 
great speculator, he would have dealt in toys one whit 
less whimsical, while I have a very great doubt whether 
they would have been as harmless. 

" So you were out in the rain last night, father, in 
your beautiful new great-coat," said Caleb's daughter. 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 185 

" In my beautiful new great-coat," answered Caleb, 
glancing towards a clothes-line in the room, on which 
the sackcloth garment previously described was care- 
fully hung up to dry. 
..." How glad I am you bought it, father!" 

"And of such a tailor, too," said Caleb. "Quite a 
fashionable tailor. It's too good for me." 

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed 
with delight. "Too good, father! What can be too 
good for you?" 

"I'm half ashamed to wear it, though," said Caleb, 
watching the effect of what he said, upon her brighten- 
ing face, "upon my word! When I hear the boys and 
people say behind me, ' Hal-loa! Here's a swell ! ' I don't 
know which way to look. And when the beggar 
wouldn't go away last night; and, when I said I was a 
very common man, said 'No, your Honor! Bless your 
Honor, don't say that!' I was quite ashamed. I really 
felt as if I hadn't a right to wear it." 

Happy Blind Grirl! How merry she was in her exulta- 
tion ! 

" I see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, " as 
plainly as if I had the eyes I never want when you are 
with me. A blue coat — " 

"Bright blue," said Caleb. 

"Yes, yes! Bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning 
up her radiant face; "the colour I can just remember 
in the blessed sky! You told me it was blue before. A 
bright blue coat—" 

" Made loose to the figure," suggested Caleb. 

" Yes! loose to the figure!" cried the Blind Girl, laugh- 
ing heartily; "and in it, you, dear father, with your 
merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your 
dark hair — looking so young and handsome!" 

" Halloa! Halloa!" said Caleb. " I shall be vain pres- 
ently." 

"J think you are, already," cried the Blind Girl, 
pointing at him, in her glee. " I know you, father! Ha, 
ha, ha! I've found you out, you see!" 

How different the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as 
he sat observing her! She had spoken of his free step. 
She was right in that. For years and years, he had 
never once crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, 
but with a footfall counterfeited for her ear; and never 



186 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the 
light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and cour- 
ageous! 

Heaven knows! But I think Caleb's vague bewilder- 
ment of manner may have half originated in his having 
confused himself about himself and everything around 
him, for the love of his Blind Daughter. How could 
the little man be otherwise than bewildered, after la- 
bouring for so many years to destroy his own identity, 
and that of all the objects that had any bearing on it! 

" There we are," said Caleb, falling back a pace or 
two to form the better judgment of his work; " as near 
the real thing as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to six- 
pence. What a pity that the whole front of the house 
opens at once! If there was only a staircase in it, now, 
and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! But that's 
the worst of my calling, I'm always deluding myself, 
and swindling myself." 

"You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, 
father?" 

" Tired," echoed Caleb, with a great burst of anima- 
tion, "what should tire me, Bertha? J was never tired. 
What does it mean?" 

To give the greater force to his words, he checked 
himself in an involuntary imitation of two half-length 
stretchmg and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, 
who were represented as in one eternal state of weari- 
ness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment 
of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something 
about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an assump- 
tion of a devil-may-care voice, that made his face a 
thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than 
ever. 

"What! You're singing, are you?" said Tackleton, 
putting his head in at the door. " Go it! I can't sing." 

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't 
what is generally termed a singing face, by any means. 

"I can't afford to sing," said Tackleton. "I'm glad 
you can. I hope you can afford to work, too. Hardly 
time for both, I should think?" 

" If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking 
at me!" whispered Caleb. "Such a man to joke! you'd 
think, if you didn't know him, he was in earnest — 
wouldn't you now?" 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 187 

The Blind Girl smiled and nodded. 

" The bird that can sing and won't sing, must be made 
to sing, they say/' grumbled Tackleton. "What about 
the owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will 
sing; is there anything that he should be made to do?" 

"The extent to which he's winking at this moment!" 
whispered Caleb to his daughter. "Oh, my gracious!" 

"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the 
smiling Bertha. 

"Oh! you're there, are you?" answered Tackleton. 
"Poor Idiot!" 

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded 
the belief, I can't say whether consciously or not, upon 
her being fond of him. 

"Well! and being there, how are you?" said Tackle- 
ton in his grudging way. 

"Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you 
can wish me to be. As happy as you would make the 
whole world, if you could!" 

"Poor Idiot!" muttered Tackleton. "No gleam of 
reason. Not a gleam!" 

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for 
a moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek 
against it tenderly, before releasing it, There was such 
unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in the 
act, that Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a 
milder growl than usual: 

" What's the matter now?" 

"I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to 
sleep last night, and remembered it in my dreams. 
And when the day broke, and the glorious red sun — the 
red sun, father?" 

"Red in the mornings and in the evenings, Bertha," 
said poor Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer. 

" When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to 
strike myself against in walking, came into the room, I 
turned the little tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for 
making things so precious, and blessed you for sending 
them to cheer me!" 

"Bedlam broke loose!" said Tackleton under his 
breath. "We shall arrive at the strait waistcoat and 
mufflers soon. " We're getting on!" 

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, 
stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as 



188 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

if he really were uncertain (I believe he was) whether 
Tackleton had done anything to deserve her thanks or 
not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent at 
that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy 
merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I 
believe it would have been an even chance which course 
he would have taken. Yet Caleb knew that with his 
own hands he had brought the little rose tree home for 
her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he had 
forged the innocent deception which should help to keep 
her from suspecting how much, how very much, he 
every day denied himself, that she might be the happier. 

"Bertha!" said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a 
little cordiality. " Come here." 

"Oh! I can come straight to you. You needn't guide 
me!" she rejoined. 

" Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?" 

" If you will!" she answered, eagerly. 

How bright the darkened face! How adorned with 
light, the listening head! 

"This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the 
spoiled child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit 
to you — makes her fantastic Picnic here, an't it?" said 
Tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste for the 
whole concern. 

" Yes," replied Bertha. " This is the day." 

" I thought so," said Tackleton. "I should like to 
join the party." 

" Do you hear that, father!" cried the Blind Girl, in 
an ecstasy. 

"Yes, yes, I hear it," murmured Caleb, with the fixed 
look of a sleep-walker; " but I don't believe it. It's one 
of my lies, I've no doubt." 

" You see I — I want to bring the Peerybingles a little 
more into company with May Fielding," said Tackleton, 

I am going to be married to May." 

"Married!" cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. 

" She's such a con-founded idiot," muttered Tackleton 

that I was afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah, 
Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass- 
coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favours, marrow- 
bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tom-foolery. A 
wedding, you know; a wedding. Don't you know what 
a wedding is?" 



a 



a 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 189 

" I know/' replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. 
"I understand!" 

"Do you?" muttered Tackleton. "It's more than I 
expected. Well! On that account I want to join the 
party, and to bring May and her mother. I'll send in a 
little something or other, before the afternoon. A cold 
leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. 
You'll expect me?" 

" Yes," she answered. 

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so 
stood, with her hands crossed, musing. 

"I don't think you will," muttered Tackleton, looking 
at her; " for you seem to have forgotten all about it al- 
ready. Caleb!" 

" I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose," thought 
Caleb. "Sir!" 

" Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to 
her." 

"She never forgets," returned Caleb. "It's one of 
the few things she an't clever in." 

" Every man thinks his "own geese swans," observed 
the Toy merchant, with a shrug. " Poor devil!" 

Having delivered himself of which remark, with in- 
finite contempt, old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew. 

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in medi- 
tation. The gaiety had vanished from her downcast 
face, and it was very sad. Three or four times she 
shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or 
some loss: but her sorrowful reflections found no vent 
in words. 

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, 
in yoking a team of horses to a wagon by the summary 
process of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their 
bodies, that she drew near to his working-stool, and sit- 
ting down beside him, said: 

" Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, 
my patient, willing eyes." 

" Here they are," said Caleb. " Always ready. They 
are more yours than mine, Bertha, any hour in the 
four-and-twenty. What shall your eyes do for you, 
dear?" 

" Look round the room, father." 

"All right," said Caleb. "No sooner said than done, 
Bertha." 



190 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

" Tell me about it." 

" It's much the same as usual/' said Caleb. " Homely, 
but very snug. The gay colours on the walls; the 
bright flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining 
wood, where there are beams or panels; the general 
cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very 
pretty." 

Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha's hands 
could busy themselves. But nowhere else were cheer- 
fulness and neatness possible, in the old crazy shed 
which Caleb's fancy so transformed. 

" You have your working-dress on, and are not so gal- 
lant as when you wear the handsome coat?" said Bertha, 
touching him. 

"Not quite so gallant," answered Caleb. "Pretty 
brisk, though." 

" Father," said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his 
side; and stealing one arm round his neck, "tell me 
something about May. She is very fair?" 

" She is indeed," said Caleb. And she was indeed. It 
was quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on 
his invention. 

"Her hair is dark," said Bertha, pensively, "darker 
than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I 
have often loved to hear it. Her shape — " 

" There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it," said 
Caleb. "And her eyes! — " 

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his 
neck, and from the arm that clung about him, came a 
warning pressure which he understood too well. 

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and 
then fell back upon the song about the sparkling bowl, 
his infallible resource in all such difficulties. 

" Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never 
tired, you know, of hearing about him. Now, was I 
ever ?" she said, hastily. 

" Of course not," answered Caleb, "and with reason." 

" Ah! With how much reason!" cried the Blind Girl. 
With such fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were 
so pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped 
his eyes, as if she could have read in them his innocent 
deceit. 

"Then tell me again about him, dear father," said 
Bertha. " Many times again! His face is benevolent, 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 191 

kind, and tender. Honest and true, I am sure it is. The 
manly heart that tries to cloak all favours with a show 
of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its every look 
and glance/' 

" And makes it noble, " added Caleb, in his quiet des- 
peration. 

" And makes it noble!" cried the Blind Girl. " He is 
older than May, father." 

" Ye-es," said Caleb, reluctantly. " He's a little older 
than May. But that don't signify." 

"Oh, father, yes! To be his patient companion in in- 
firmity and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and 
his constant friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no 
weariness in working for his sake; to watch him, tend 
him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake, and 
pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be ! 
What opportunities for proving all her truth and her. 
devotion to him! Would she do all this, dear father?" 

" No doubt of it ?" said Caleb. 

"I love her, father; I can love her from my soul ! " 
exclaimed the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her 
poor blind face on Caleb's shoulder, and so wept and 
wept that he was almost sorry to have brought that 
tearful happiness upon her. 

In the meantime there had been a pretty sharp com- 
motion at John Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peery- 
bingle naturally couldn't think of going anywhere 
without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh, 
took time. Not that there was much of the Baby, 
speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but 
there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all 
had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the 
Baby was got by hook and by crook to a certain point 
of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed 
that another touch or two would finish him off, and 
turn him out a tip-top Baby, challenging the world, he 
was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and 
hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) 
between two blankets for the best part of an hour. 
From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining 
very much and roaring violently, to partake of — well? 
I would rather say, if you'll permit me to speak gener- 
erally — of a slight repast. After which, he went to 
sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this 






192 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

interval to make herself as smart in a small way as 
ever you saw anybody in all your life; and, during* the 
same short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into 
a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that 
it had no connection with herself, or anything else in 
the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, inde- 
pendent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the 
least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being 
all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of 
Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream- 
coloured mantle for his body, and a sort of nankeen 
raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all 
three got down to the door, where the old horse had 
already taken more than the full value of his day's toll 
out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road with 
his impatient autographs; and whence Boxer might be 
dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking 
back, and tempting him to come on without orders. 

As to a chair or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. 
Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, 
if you think that was necessary. Before you could have 
seen him lift her from the ground, there she was in her 
place, fresh and rosy, saying, "John! How can you! 
Think of Tilly!" 

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, 
on any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowby's that 
there was a fatality about them which rendered them 
singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never affected 
the smallest ascent or descent, without recording the 
circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson 
Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. 
But as this might be considered ungenteel, I'll think of it. 

"John? You've got the basket with the Veal and 
Ham Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer?" said Dot. 
" If you haven't, you must turn round again, this very 
minute." 

You're a nice little article," returned the Carrier, 

to be talking about turning round, after keeping me a 
full quarter of an hour behind my time." 

" I am sorry for it, John," said Dot in a great bustle, 
"but I really could not think of going to Bertha's — I 
would not do it, John, on any account — without the 
Veal and Ham Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer. 
Way!" 



it 









THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 193 



This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who 
didn't mind it at all. 

"Oh, do way, John!" said Mrs. Peerybingle. 
I: Please!" 

"It'll be time enough to do that/' returned John, 
" when I begin to leave things behind me. The basket's 
here safe enough." 

" What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, 
not to have said so, at once, and save me such a turn! 
I declare I wouldn't go to Bertha's without the Veal and 
Ham Pie and things, and the bottles of Beer, for any 
money. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we have 
been married, John, have we made our little Pic-Nic 
there. If anything was to go wrong with it, I should 
almost think we were never to be lucky again." 

"It was a kind thought in the first instance," said the 
Carrier; "and I honour you for it, little woman." 

"My dear John," replied Dot, turning very red. 
"Don't talk about honouring me. Good gracious!" 

"By-the-bye — " observed the Carrier, "that old gen- 
tleman — " 

Again so visibly and instantly embarrassed. 

" He's an odd fish," said the Carrier, looking straight 
along the road before them. " I can't make him out. I 
don't believe there's any harm in him." 

" None at all. I'm — I'm sure there's none at all." 

" Yes," said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her 
face by the great earnestness of her manner. "I am 
glad you feel so certain of it, because it's a confirmation 
to me. It's curious he should have taken it into his 
head to ask leave to go on lodging with us, ain't it? 
Things come about so strangely." 

"So very strangely," she rejoined, in a low voice, 
scarcely audible. 

" However, he's a good-natured old gentleman," said 
John, "and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word 
is to be relied upon, like a gentleman's. I had quite a 
long talk with him this morning; he can hear me better 
already, he says, as he gets more used to my voice. He 
told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a 
good deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he 
asked me. I gave him information about my having 
two beats, you know, in my business; one day to the 
right from our house and back again, another day to the 
14 



194 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

left from our house and back again (for he's a stranger 
and don't know the names of places about here); and he 
seemed quite pleased. ' Why, then I shall be returning 
home to-night your way/ he says, ' when I thought" 
you'd be coming in an exactly opposite direction. That's 
capital! I may trouble you for another lift, perhaps, but 
I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep again.' He was 
sound asleep, sure-ly! — Dot! what are you thinking of?" 

" Thinking of, John? I — I was listening to you." 

" Oh! That's all right!" said the honest Carrier. " I 
was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone 
rambling on so long, as to set you thinking about some- 
thing else. I was very near it, I'll be bound." 

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little 
time, in silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent 
very long in John Peerybingle's cart, for everybody on 
the road had something to say. Though it might only 
be, " How are you?" and indeed it was very often noth- 
ing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit 
of cordiality, required not merely a nod and a smile, 
but as wholesome an action of the lungs, withal, as a 
long-winded Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, pas- 
sengers, on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way 
beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat; 
and then there was a great deal to be said on both sides. 

Then Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured 
recognitions of, and by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen 
Christians could have done! Everybody knew him, all 
along the road — especially the fowls and pigs, who, 
when they saw him approaching, with his body all on 
one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that 
knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, imme- 
diately withdrew into remote back settlements, without 
waiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. He 
had business everywhere; going down all the turnings, 
looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the 
cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame Schools, 
fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the 
cats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular 
customer. Wherever he w^ent, somebody or other 
might have been heard to cry, " Halloa! Here's Boxer!" 
and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by 
at least two or three other somebodies, to give John 
Peerybingle and his pretty wife Good-day. 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 195 

The packages and parcels for the errand cart were 
numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them 
in and give them out, which were not by any means the 
worst parts of the journey. Some people were so full of 
expectation about their parcels, and other people were 
so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people 
were so full of inexhaustible directions about their par- 
cels, and John had such a lively interest in all the parcels, 
that it was as good as a play. Likewise, there were 
articles to carry, which required to be considered and 
discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and dispo- 
sition of which, councils had to be holden by the Car- 
rier and the senders: at which Boxer usually assisted, 
in short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of 
tearing round and round the assembled sages and bark- 
ing himself hoarse. Of all these little incidents, Dot 
was the amused and opened-eyed spectatress from her 
chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on — a 
charming little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt 
— there was no lack of nudgings and glancings and 
whisperings and envyings among the younger men. 
And this delighted John the Carrier beyond measure; 
for he was proud to have his little wife admired, know- 
ing that she didn't mind it — that, if anything, she rather 
liked it, perhaps. 

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January 
weather; and was raw and cold. But who cared for 
such trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, 
for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the 
highest point of human joys; the crowning circumstance 
of earthly hopes. Not the Baby, I'll be sworn; for it's 
not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, 
though its capacity is great in both respects, than that 
blessed young Peerybingle was, all the way. 

You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but 
you could see a great deal ! It's astonishing how much 
you may see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will only 
take the trouble to look for it. Why, even to sit watch- 
ing for the Fairy rings in the fields, and for the patches 
of hoar frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges 
and by trees, was a pleasant occupation, to make no 
mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees 
themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided 
into it again. The hedges were tangled and bare, and 



196 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; 
but there was no discouragement in this. It was agree- 
able to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in 
possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The 
river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at 
a good pace — which was a great point. The canal was 
rather slow and torpid; that must be admitted. Never 
mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost set 
fairly in, and then there would be skating and sliding; 
and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a 
whSxf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney pipes all 
day, and have a lazy time of it. 

In one place there was a great mound of weeds or 
stubble burning, and they watched the fire, so white in 
the daytime, flaring through the fog, with only here 
and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence as 
she observed of the smoke "getting up her nose," Miss 
Slowboy choked — she could do anything of that sort on 
the smallest provocation — and woke the Baby, who 
wouldn't go to sleep again. But Boxer, who was in ad- 
vance some quarter of a mile or so, had already passed 
the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the 
street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and long be- 
fore they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl 
were on the pavement waiting to receive them. 

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions 
of his own in his communication with Bertha, which 
persuade me fully that he knew her to be blind. He 
never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, 
as he often did with other people, but touched her inva- 
riably. What experience he could ever have had of 
blind people or blind dogs I don't know. He had never 
lived with a blind master; nor had Mr. Boxer the elder, 
nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable family on 
either side, ever been visited with blindness, that I am 
aware of. He may have found it out for himself, per- 
haps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore 
he had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, 
until Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy, 
and the basket,* were all got safely within doors. 

May Fielding was already come; and so was her 
mother— a little querulous chip of an old lady with a 

{>eevish face, who, in right of having preserved a waist 
ike a bed-post, was supposed to be a most transcendant 



■ 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 197 

figure; and who, in consequence of having once been 
better off, or of labouring under an impression that she 
might have been, if something had happened which 
never did happen, and seemed to have never been par- 
ticularly likely to come to pass — but it's all the same — 
was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and 
Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the 
evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as 
unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young 
salmon on the top of the Great Pyramid. 

"May! My dear old friend !" cried Dot, running up 
to meet her. "What a happiness to see you !" 

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad 
as she; and it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a 
pleasant sight to see them embrace. Tackleton was a 
man of taste, beyond all question. May was very pretty. 

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty 
face, how, when it comes into contact and comparison 
with another pretty face, it seems for the moment to be 
homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opin- 
ion you have had of it. Now, this was not at all the 
case, either with Dot or May; for May's face set off Dot's 
and Dot's face set off May's, so naturally and agreeably 
that, as John Peerybingle was very near saying when 
he came into the room, they ought to have been born 
sisters — which was the only improvement you could 
have suggested. 

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, won- 
derful to relate, a tart besides — but we don't mind a little 
dissipation when our brides are in the case; we don't get 
married every day — and in addition to these dainties, 
there were the Veal and Ham Pie, and "things," as 
Mrs. Peerybingle called them; which were chiefly nuts 
and oranges, and cakes, and such small beer. When the 
repast was set forth on the board, flanked by Caleb's 
contribution, which was a great wooden bowl of smoking 
potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn compact, from 
producing any other viands), Tackleton led his intended 
mother-in-law to the post of honour. For the better 
gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic 
old soul had adorned herself with a cap calculated to 
inspire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She 
also wore her gloves. But let us be genteel, or die! 

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old school- 



198 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 






fellow were side by side; the good Carrier took care of 
the bottom of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for 
the time being, from every article of furniture but the 
chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to 
knock the baby's head against. 

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they 
stared at her and at the company. The venerable old 
gentlemen at the street doors (who were all in full 
action) showed especial interest in the party, pausing 
occasionally before leaping, as if they were listening to 
the conversation, and then plunging wildly over and 
over, a great many times, without halting for breath — ■ 
as in a frantic state of delight with the whole pro- 
ceedings. 

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to 
have a fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's 
discomfiture, they had good reason to be satisfied. 
Tackleton couldn't get on at all; and the more cheerful 
his intended bride became in Dot's society, the less he 
liked it, though he had brought them together for that 
purpose. For he was a regular dog in the manger, was 
Tackleton; and when they laugh e*d and he couldn't, he 
took it into his head, immediately, that they must be 
laughing at him. 

" Ah, May!" said Dot. " Dear, dear, what changes! To 
talk of those merry school-days, makes one young again." 

"Why, you an't particularly old, at any time; are 
you?" said Tackleton. 

" Look at my sober, plodding husband there," returned 
Dot. " He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don't 
you, John?" 

" Forty," John replied. 

"How many you'll add to May's, I am sure I don't 
know," said Dot, laughing. "But she can't be much 
less than a hundred years of age on her next birthday." 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum 
that laugh, though. And he looked as if he could have 
twisted Dot's neck, comfortably. 

" Dear, dear!" said Dot. " Only to remember how we 
used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would 
choose. I don't know how young, and how handsome, 
and how gay, and how lively, mine was not to be! And 
as to May's! — Ah, dear! I don't know whether to laugh 
or cry, when I think what silly girls we were." 



I 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 199 



May seemed to know which to do; for the colour 
flashed into her face, and tears stood in her eyes. 

"Even the very persons themselves — real live young 
men — we fixed on sometimes/' said Dot. "We little 
thought how things would come about. I never fixed 
on John, I'm sure; I never so much as thought of him. 
And if I had told you, you were ever to be married to 
Mr. Tackleton, why you'd have slapped me. Wouldn't 
you, May?" 

Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say 
no, or express no, by any means. 

Tackleton laughed — quite shouted, he laughed so loud. 
John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary, good- 
natured and contented manner; but his was a mere 
whisper offa laugh, to Tackleton's. 

"You couldn't help yourselves for all that. You 
couldn't resist us, you see," said Tackleton. " Here we 
are! Here we are! Where are your gay young bride- 
grooms now!" 

"Some of them are dead," said Dot; "and some of 
them forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand 
among us at this moment, would not believe we were the 
same creatures; would not believe that what they saw 
and heard was real, and we could forget them so. No! 
they would not believe one word of it!" 

" Why, Dot!" exclaimed the Carrier. " Little woman!" 

She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that 
she stood in need of some recalling to herself, without 
doubt. Her husband's check was very gentle, for he 
merely interfered, as he supposed, to shield old Tackle- 
ton; but it proved effectual, for she stopped, and said no 
more. There was an uncommon agitation even in her 
silence, which the wary Tackleton, who had brought 
his half -shut eye to bear upon her, noted closely, and 
remembered to some purpose, too. 

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, 
with her eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest 
in what had passed. The good lady, her mother, now in- 
terposed, observing, in the first instance, that girls were 
girls, and bygones bygones, and that so long as young 
people were young and thoughtless, they would proba- 
bly conduct themselves like young and thoughtless per- 
sons: with two or three other no positions of a no less 
sound an$ incontrovertible character. She then re- 






200 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

marked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked Heaven 
she had always found in her daughter May a dutiful and 
obedient child: for which she took no credit to herself, 
though she had every reason to believe it was entirely 
owing to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton, she 
said that he was in a moral point of view an undeniable 
individual, and that he was in an eligible point of view 
a son-in-law to be desired, no one in their senses could 
doubt. (She was very emphatic here.) With regard to 
the family into which he was so soon about, after some 
solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton 
knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some pre- 
tentions to gentility; and that if certain circumstances, 
not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, 
with the Indigo Trade, but to which she woul^. not more 
particularly refer, had happened differently, it might 
perhaps have been in possession of wealth. She then 
remarked that she would not allude to the past, and 
would not mention that her daughter had for some time 
rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and that she would 
not say a great many other things which she did say, at 
great length. Finally,, she delivered it as the general 
result of her observation and experience, that those 
marriages in which there was least of what was roman- 
tically and sillily called love, were always the happiest; 
and that she anticipated the greatest possible amount of 
bliss — not rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady -going 
article — from the approaching nuptials. She concluded 
by informing the company that to-morrow w^as the day 
she had lived for expressly; and that when it was over, 
she would desire nothing better than to be packed up 
and disposed of, in any genteel place of burial. 

As these remarks were quite unanswerable — which is 
the happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently 
wide of the purpose — they changed the current of the 
conversation, and diverted the general attention to the 
Veal and Ham Pie, the cold mutton, the potatoes, and 
the tart. In order that the bottled beer might not be 
slighted, John Peerybingle proposed To-morrow: the 
Wedding-Day; and called upon them to drink a bumper 
to it, before he proceeded on his journey. 

For you ought to know that he only rested there, and 
gave the old horse a bait. He had to go some four or 
five miles farther on; and when he returned ii\the even- 






THE CRICKET ON" THE HEARTH. 201 

ing, he called for Dot, and took another rest on his way 
home. This was the order of the day on all the Picnic 
occasions, and had been, ever since their institution. 

There were two persons present, besides the bride and 
bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honour to the 
toast. One of these was Dot, too flushed and discom- 
posed to adapt herself to any small occurrence of the 
moment; the other, Bertha, who rose up hurriedly before 
the rest, and left the table. 

" Good-bye!" said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on 
his dreadnought coat. " I shall be back at the old time. 
Good-bye ? all!" 

" Good-bye, John," returned Caleb. 

He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in 
the same unconscious manner; for he stood observing 
Bertha with an anxious, wondering face, that never 
altered its expression. 

"Good-bye, young shaver!" said the Jolly Carrier, 
bending down to kiss the child; which Tilly Slowboy, 
now intent upon her knife and fork, had deposited asleep 
(and strange to say, without damage) in a little cot of 
Bertha's furnishing; "good-bye! Time will come, I sup- 
pose, when you'll turn out into the cold, my little friend, 
and leave your old father to enjoy his pipe and his 
rheumatics in the chimney-corner; eh? Where's Dot?" 

"Fm here, John!" she said, starting. 

"Come, come!" returned the carrier, clapping his 
sounding hands. 

" Where's the pipe?" 

" I quite forgot the pipe, John." 

Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of! 
She! Forgot the pipe! 

" I'll— I'll All it directly. It's soon done." 

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual 
place — the Carrier's dreadnought pocket — with the little 
pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it; 
but her hand shook so, that she entangled it (and yet her 
hand was small enough to have come out easily, I am 
sure), and bungled terribly. The filling of the pipe and 
lighting it, those little offices in which I have com- 
mended her discretion, were vilely done from first to 
last. During the whole process, Tackleton stood look- 
ing on maliciously with the half -closed eye; which, 
whenever it met hers — or caught it, for it can hardly be 



202 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

said to have ever met another eye: rather being a kind 
of trap to snatch it up — augmented her confusion in a 
most remarkable degree. 

"Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!" 
said John. " I could have done it better myself, I verily 
believe!" 

With these good-natured words, he strode away, and 
presently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the 
old horse, and the cart, making lively music down the 
road. What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watch- 
ing his blind daughter, with the same expression on his 
face. 

"Bertha!" said Caleb, softly. " What has happened? 
How changed you are, my darling, in a few hours — 
since this morning. You silent and dull all day! What 
is it? Tell me!" 

"Oh, father, father!" cried the Blind Girl, bursting 
into tears. " Oh, my hard, hard fate!" 

Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he an- 
swered her. 

" But think how cheerful and how happy you have 
been, Bertha! How good, and how much loved, by many 
people." 

"That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always 
so mindful of me! Always so kind to me!" 

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. 

"To be — to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear," he fal- 
tered, "is a great affliction; but — " 

" I have never felt it!" cried the Blind Girl. " I have 
never felt it, in its fullness. Never! I have sometimes 
wished that I could see you, or could see him — only 
once, dear father, only for one little minute — that I 
might know what it is I treasure up," she laid her hands 
upon her breast, " and hold here! That I might be sure 
I have it right! And sometimes (but then I was a child) 
I have wept, in my prayers at night, to think that when 
your images ascended from my heart to Heaven, they 
might not be the true resemblance of yourselves. But I 
have never had these feelings long. They have passed 
away, and left me tranquil and contented." 

"And they will again," said Caleb. 

"But, father! Oh, my good, gentle father, bear with 
me, if I am wicked!" said the Blind Girl. " This is not 
the sorrow that so weighs me down!" 









THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 203 



Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes over- 
flow; she was so earnest and pathetic. But he did not 
understand her yet. 

"Bring her to me," said Bertha. "I cannot hold it 
closed and shut within myself. Bring her to me, 
father!" 

She knew he hesitated, and said, " May. Bring May!" 

May heard the mention of her name, and coming 
quietly towards her, touched her on the arm. The Blind 
Girl turned immediately, and held her by both hands. 

"Look into my face, Dear heart, Sweet heart!" said 
Bertha. " Read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me 
if the truth is written on it." 

"Dear Bertha, yes!" 

The Blind Girl, still upturning the blank, sightless 
face, down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed 
her in these words: 

" There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is 
not for your good, bright May! Tfrere is not, in my 
soul, a grateful recollection stronger than the deep re- 
membrance which is stored there, of the many, many 
times when, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you 
have had consideration for Blind Bertha, even when we 
two ^ere children, or when Bertha was as much a child 
as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your head! 
Light upon your happy course! Not the less, my dear 
May;" and she drew towards her, in a closer grasp; 
" not the less, my bird, because, to-day, the knowledge 
that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost 
to breaking! Father, May, Mary! oh, forgive me that 
it is so, for the sake of all he has done to relieve the 
weariness of my dark life: and for the sake of the belief 
you have in me, when I call Heaven to witness that I 
could not wish him married to a wife more worthy of 
his goodness!" 

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's 
hands, and clasped her garments in an attitude of min- 
gled supplication and love. Sinking lower and lower 
down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she 
dropped at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her 
blind face in the folds of her dress. 

" Great Power!" exclaimed her father, smitten at one 
blow with the truth, "have I deceived her from her 
cradle, but to break her heart at last!" 






204 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, 
useful, busy little Dot — for such she was, whatever 
faults she had, and however you may learn to hate her, 
in good time — it was well for all of them, I say, that she 
was there: or where this would have ended it were hard 
to tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession, inter- 
posed before May could reply or Caleb say another 
word. 

" Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give 
her your arm, May. So! How composed she is, you 
see, already; and how good it is of her to mind us," 
said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the fore- 
head. ''Come away, dear Bertha. Come! and here's 
her good father will come with her; won't you, Caleb? 
To — be — sure!" 

Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, 
and it must have been an obdurate nature that could 
have withstood her influence. When she had got poor 
Caleb and his Bfertha away, that they might comfort 
and console each other, as she knew they only could, 
she presently came bouncing back, — the saying is, as 
fresh as any daisy; I say fresher — to mount guard over 
that bridling little piece of consequence in the c^p and 
gloves and prevent the dear old creature from making 
discoveries. 

"So bring me the precious Baby, Tilly/' said she, 
drawing a chair to the fire; " and while I have it in my 
lap, here's Mrs. Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all about the 
management of Babies, and put me right in twenty 
points where I'm as wrong as can be. Won't vou, Mrs. 
Fielding?" 

Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the 
popular expression, was so " slow " as to perform a fatal 
surgical operation upon himself, in emulation of a jug- 
gling trick achieved by his arch enemy at breakfast-time; 
not even he fell half so readily into the snare prepared 
for him, as the old lady into this artful pitfall. The 
fact of Tackleton having walked out; and furthermore, 
of two or three people having been talking together at 
a distance, for two minutes, leaving her to her own 
resources; was quite enough to have put her on her 
dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious con- 
vulsion in the Indigo trade, for four-and-twenty hours. 
But this becoming deference to her experience; on the 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 205 

part of the young mother, was so irresistible, that after 
a short affectation of humility, she began to enlighten 
her with the best grace in the world; and sitting bolt 
upright before the wicked Dot, she did, in half an hour, 
deliver more infallible domestic recipes and precepts, 
than would (if acted on) have utterly destroyed and done 
up that Young Peerybingle, though he had been an 
Infant Samson. 

To change the theme, Dot did a little needlework — she 
carried the contents of a whole workbox in her pocket; 
however she contrived it, 1 don't know — then did a little 
nursing; then a little more needlework; then had a 
little whispering chat with May, while the old lady 
dozed; and so in little bits of bustle, which was quite 
her manner always, found it a very short afternoon. 
Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a solemn part of 
this Institution of the Picnic that she should perform 
ail Bertha's household tasks, she trimmed the fire, and 
swept the hearth, and set the tea-board out, and drew 
the curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she played an 
air or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had con- 
trived for Bertha, and played them very well; for Nature 
had made her delicate little ear as choice a one for 
music as it would have been for jewels, if she had had 
any to wear. By this time it was the established hour 
for having tea; and Tackleton came back again, to 
share the meal and spend the evening. 

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and 
Caleb had sat down to his afternoon's work. But he 
couldn't settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and 
remorseful for his daughter. It was touching to see 
him sitting idle on his working stool, regarding her so 
wistfully, and always saying in his face, "Have I 
deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart!" 

When it was night and tea was done, and Dot had 
nothing more to do in washing up the cups and saucers; 
in a word — for I must come to it, and there is no use 
in putting it off — when the time drew nigh for expect- 
ing the Carrier's return in every sound of distant wheels, 
her manner changed again, her colour came and went, 
and she was very restless. Not as good wives are, 
when listening for their husbands. No, no, no. It was 
another sort of restlessness from that. 

Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a dog. 





206 THE CRICKET OX THE HEARTH. 

The gradual approach of all the sounds. The scratching 
paw of Boxer at the door! 

" Whose step is that!" cried Bertha, starting up. 

6 ' Whose step ?" returned the Carrier, standing in the 
portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry 
from the keen night air. " Why, mine." 

"The other step," said Bertha, "The man's tread 
behind you!" 

"She is not to be deceived," observed the Carrier, 
laughing. " Come along, sir. You'll be welcome, never 
fear!" 

He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old 
gentleman entered. 

" He's not so much a stranger, that you haven't seen 
him once, Caleb," said the Carrier. " You'll give him 
house-room till we go?" 

" Oh, surely, John, and take it as an honour." 

" He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in," 
said John. " I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 
'em, I can tell you. Sit down, sir. All friends here, and 
glad to see you!" 

When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that 
amply corroborated what he had said about his lungs, 
he added in his natural tone, " A chair in the chimney- 
corner, and leave to sit quite silent and look pleasantly 
about him, is all he cares for. He's easily pleased." 

Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb 
to her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, 
in a low voice, to describe their visitor. When he had 
done so (truly now; with scrupulous fidelity), she moved, 
for the first time since he had come in, and sighed, and 
seemed to have no further interest concerning him. 

The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he 
was, and fonder of his little wife than ever. 

A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!" he said, en- 
circling her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed 
from the rest; "and vet I like her somehow. See yon- 
der, Dot!" 

He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think 
she trembled. 

" He's—ha, ha, ha!— he's full of admiration for you!" 
said the Carrier. " Talked of nothing else, the whole 
way here. Why, he's a brave old boy. I like him 
for it!" 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 207 

"I wish he had had a better subject, John/' she said, 
with an uneasy glance about the room. At Tackleton 
especially. 

"A better subject!" cried the jovial John. "There's 
no such thing. Come ! off with the great-coat, off with 
the thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and a 
cosy half -hour by the fire! My humble service, mistress. 
A game at cribbage, you and I? That's hearty. The 
cards and board, Dot. And a glass of beer here, if 
there's any left, small wife!" 

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who ac- 
cepting it with gracious readiness, they were soon en- 
gaged upon the game. At first, the Carrier looked 
about him sometimes, with a smile, or now and then 
called Dot to peep over his shoulder at his hand, and 
advise him on some knotty point. But his adversary 
being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject to an occa- 
sional weakness in respect of pegging more than she was 
entitled to, required such vigilance on his part, as left 
him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his whole 
attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; 
and he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his 
shoulder restored him to a consciousness of Tackleton. 

" I am sorry to disturb you — but a word directly." 

" I'm going to deal," returned the Carrier. " It's a 
crisis." 

" It is," said Tackleton. "Come here, man!" 

There was that in his pale face which made the other 
rise immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the 
matter was. 

"Hush! John Peerybingle," said Tackleton. "I am 
sorry for this. I am indeed. I have been afraid of it. 
I have expected it from the first." 

"What is it?" asked the Carrier, with a frightened 
aspect. 

" Hush? I'll show you if you'll come with me." 

The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. 
They went across a yard, where the stars were shining, 
and by a little side door, into Tackleton's own counting- 
house, where there was a glass window, commanding 
the wareroom, which was closed for the night. There 
was no light in the counting-house itself, but there were 
lamps in the long narrow wareroom; and consequently 
the window was bright. 



208 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

"A moment!" said Tackleton. "Can you bear to 
look through that window, do you think?" 

"Why not?" returned the Carrier. 

" A moment more," said Tackleton. " Don't commit 
any violence. It's of no use. It's dangerous too. You're 
a strong-made man; and you might do murder before 
you know it." 

The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a 
step as if he had been struck. In one stride he was at 
the window, and he saw — 

Oh, Shadow on the Hearth! Oh, truthful Cricket! Oh, 
perfidious Wife! 

He saw her with the old man — old no longer, but erect 
and gallant — bearing in his hand the false white hair 
that had won his way into their desolate and miserable 
home. He saw her listening to him, as he bent his head 
to whisper in her ear; and suffering him to clasp her 
round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim 
wooden gallery towards the door by which they had 
entered it. He saw them stop, and saw her turn — to have 
the face, the face he loved so, so presented to his view! 
— and saw her, with her own hands, adjust the lie upon 
his head, laughing, as she did it, at his unsuspicious 
nature! 

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it 
would have beaten down a lion. But opening it imme- 
diately again, he spread it out before the eyes of Tackle- 
ton (for he was tender of her, even then), and so, as 
they passed out, fell down upon a desk, and was as weak 
as any infant. 

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his 
horse and parcels, when she came into the room prepared 
for going home. 

"Now, John, dear! Good-night, May! Good-night, 
Bertha! 

Could she kiss them! Could she be blithe and cheerful 
in her parting? Could she venture to reveal her face 
to them without a blush? Yes. Tackleton observed 
her closely, and she did all this! 

Tilly was hushing the baby, and she crossed and re- 
crossed Tackleton a dozen times, repeating drowsily: 

" Did the knowledge that it was to be its wives, then 
wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers 
deceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last!" 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 209 

".Now, Tilly, give me the baby! Good-night, Mr. 
Tackleton. Where's John, for goodness sake?" 

''He's going to walk beside the horse's head," said 
Tackleton, who helped her to her seat. 

' ' My dear John. Walk ? To-night ?" 

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign 
in the affirmative; and the false stranger and the little 
nurse being in their places, the old horse moved off. 
Boxer, the unconscious Boxer, running on before, run- 
ning back, running round and round the cart, and bark- 
ing as triumphantly and merrily as ever. 

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May 
and her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire 
beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; 
and still saying, in his wistful contemplation of her, 
"Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her 
heart at last! " 

The toys that had been set in motion for the Baby had 
all stopped and run down, long ago. In the faint light and 
silence, the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rock- 
ing horses with distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentle- 
men at the street doors, standing half doubled up upon 
their failing knees and ancles, the wry-faced nut- 
crackers, the very Beasts upon their way into the Ark, 
in twos, like a Boarding School out walking, might have 
been imagined to be stricken motionless with fantastic 
wonder, at Dot being false, or Tackleton beloved, under 
any combination of circumstances. 



1$ 



210 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 



CHIRP THE THIRD. 






The Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the 
Carrier sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief- 
worn, that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who. having 
cut his ten melodious announcements as short as pos- 
sible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again, and 
clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwonted 
spectacle were too much for his feelings. 

If the little Haymaker had been armed with the 
sharpest of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into 
the Carrier's heart, he never could have gashed and 
wounded it as Dot had done. 

It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up 
and held together by innumerable threads of winning 
remembrance, spun from the daily working of her 
many qualities of endearment; it was a heart in which 
she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely; a 
heart so single and so earnest in its Truth, so strong in 
right, so weak in wrong; that it could cherish neither 
passion nor revenge at first, and had only room to hold 
the broken image of its Idol. 

But slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on 
his hearth, now cold and dark, other and. fiercer 
thoughts began to rise within him, as an angry wind 
comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath 
his outraged roof. Three steps would take him to his 
chamber door. One blow would beat it in. "You 
might do murder before you know it," Tackleton had 
said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain 
time to grapple with him hand to hand! He was the 
younger man. 

It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of 
his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to 
some avenging act, that should change the cheerful 
house into a haunted place which lonely travellers 
would dread to pass by night; and where the timid 
would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows 
when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the 
stormy weather. 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 211 



He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who 
had won the heart that he had never touched. Some 
lover of her early choice, of whom she had thought and 
dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when he 
had fancied her so happy by his side. Oh, agony to 
think of it! 

She had been above stairs with the Baby, getting it to 
bed. As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close 
beside him, without his knowledge — in the turning of 
the rack of his great misery, he lost all other sounds — 
and put her little stool at his feet. He only knew it, 
when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her look- 
ing up into his face. 

With wonder? No. It was his first impression, and 
he was fain to look at her again, to set it right. No, not 
with wonder. With an eager and inquiring look; but 
not with wonder. At first it was alarmed and serious; 
then it changed into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of 
recognition of his thoughts; then there was nothing 
but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent head, 
and falling hair. 

Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to 
wield at that moment, he had too much of its diviner 
property of Mercy in his breast to have turned one 
feather's weight of it against her. But he could not 
bear to see her crouching down upon the little seat 
where he had often looked on her, with love and pride, 
so innocent and gay; and when she rose and left him, 
sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have the vacant 
place beside him rather than her so long-cherished 
presence. This in itself was anguish keener than all, 
reminding him how desolate he was become, and how 
the great bond of his life was rent asunder. 

The more he felt this, and the more he knew, he could 
have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead 
before him with her little child upon her breast, the 
higher and the stronger rose his wrath against his 
enemy. He looked about him for a weapon. 

There was a gun hanging on the wall. He took it 
down, and moved a pace or two towards the door of the 
perfidious Stranger's room. He knew the gun was 
loaded. Some shadowy idea that it was just to shoot 
this man like a wild beast, seized him, and dilated in 
his mind until it grew into a monstrous demon in com- 



212 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

plete possession of him, casting out all milder thoughts 
and setting up its undivided empire. 

That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder 
thoughts, but artfully transforming them. Changing 
them into scourges to drive him on. Turning water 
into blood, love into hate, gentleness into blind ferocity. 
Her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleading to 
his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never 
left his mind; but, staying there, it urged him to the 
door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; fitted and 
nerved his finger to the trigger; and cried "Kill him! 
In his bed!" 

He reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; 
he already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct 
design was in his thoughts of calling out to him to fly, 
for God's sake — by the^window — 

When, suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the 
whole chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on 
the Hearth began to Chirp! 

No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not 
even hers, could so have moved and softened him. The 
artless words in which she had told him of her love for 
this same Cricket, were once more freshly spoken; her 
trembling, earnest manner at the moment, was again 
before him; her pleasant voice — oh, what a voice it was, 
for making household music at the fireside of an honest 
man ! — thrilled through and through his better nature, 
and awoke it into life and action. 

He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his 
sleep, awakened from a frightful dream; and put the 
gun aside. Clasping his hands before his face, he then 
sat down again beside the fire, and found relief in 
tears. 

The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, 
and stood in Fairy shape before him. 

" ' I love it,' " said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he 
well remembered, "'for the many times I have heard 
it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has 
given me.'" 

" She said so!" cried the Carrier. " True!" 

" 'This has been a happy home, John; and I love the 
Cricket for its sake!' " 

"It has been, Heaven knows," returned the Carrier. 
"She made it happy, always — until now." 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 213 



a 



So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, 
busy, and light-hearted!" said the Voice. 

"Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did," 
returned the Carrier. 

The Voice, correcting him, said "do." 

The Carrier repeated "as I did." But not firmly. 
His faltering tongue resisted his control, and would 
speak in its own way for itself and him. 

The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its 
hand and said: 

"Upon your own hearth — " 

" The hearth she has blighted," interposed the Carrier. 

" The hearth she has — how often! — blessed and bright- 
ened," said the Cricket; "the hearth which, but for her, 
were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but 
which has been, through her, the Altar of your Home; 
on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, 
selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a 
tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing 
heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has 
gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest 
incense that is burned before the richest shrines in all 
the gaudy temples of this world! — Upon your own 
hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its gentle 
influences and associations; hear her! Hear me! Hear 
everything that speaks the language of your hearth and 
home!" 

"And pleads for her?" inquired the Carrier. 

" All things that speak the language of your hearth 
and home, must plead for her!" returned the Cricket. 
" For they speak the truth." 

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, 
continued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence 
stood beside him, suggesting his reflections by its power, 
and presenting them before him, as in a glass or picture. 
It was not a solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, 
from the chimney, from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, 
and the cradle; from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, 
and the stairs; from the cart without, and the cupboard 
within, and the household implements; from everything 
and every place with which she had ever been familiar, 
and with which she had ever entwined one recollection 
of herself in her unhappy husband's mind; Fairies came 
trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket 



214 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all honour 
to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point to it 
when it appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, 
and strew flowers for it to tread on. To try to crown 
its fair head with their tiny hands. To show that they 
were fond of it, and loved it; and that there was 
not one ugly, wicked, or accusatory creature to claim 
knowledge of it — none but their playful and approving 
selves. 

His thoughts were constant to her image. It was 
always there. 

She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing 
to herself. Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! 
The fairy figures turned upon him all at once, by one 
consent, with one prodigious concentrated stare, and 
seemed to say, " Is this the light wife you are mourn- 
ing for!" 

There were sounds of gaiety outside, musical instru- 
ments, and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd of 
young merry-makers came pouring in, among whom 
were May Fielding and a score of pretty girls. Dot 
was the fairest of them all; as young as any of them, 
too. They came to summon her to join their party. It 
was a dance. If ever little foot were made for dancing, 
hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook her head, 
and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table 
ready spread; with an exulting defiance that rendered 
her more charming than she was before. And so she 
merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be part- 
ners, one by one, as they passed out, with a comical 
indifference, enough to make them go and drown them- 
selves immediately if they were her admirers — and 
they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't 
help it. And yet indifference was not her charac- 
ter. Oh, no! For presently, there came a certain Car- 
rier to the door; and bless her, what a welcome she 
bestowed upon him! 

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at 
once, and seemed to say, " Is this the wife who has for- 
saken you!" 

A shadow fell upon the mirror, or the picture; call it 
what you will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as he 
first stood underneath their roof; covering its surface, 
and blotting out all other objects. But the nimble 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 215 

Fairies worked like bees to clear it off again. And Dot 
again was there. Still bright and beautiful. 

Rocking her little Baby in its cradle, singing to it 
softly, and resting her head upon a shoulder which had 
its counterpart in the musing figure by which the Fairy 
Cricket stood. 

The night — I mean the real night: not going by Fairy 
clocks — was wearing now; and in this stage of the Car- 
rier's thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly 
in the sky. Perhaps some calm and quiet light had 
risen also, in his mind; and he could think more soberly 
of what had happened. 

Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals 
upon the glass — always distinct, and big, and thoroughly 
defined — it never fell so darkly as at first. 'Whenever it 
appeared, the Fairies uttered a general cry of consterna- 
tion, and plied their little arms and legs, with incon- 
ceivable activity, to rub it out. And whenever they 
got at Dot again, and showed her to him once more, 
bright and beautiful, they cheered in the most inspiring 
manner. 

They never showed her, otherwise than beautiful and 
bright, for they were Household Spirits to whom false- 
hood is an annihilation; and being so, what Dot was 
there for them, but the one active, beaming, pleasant 
little creature who had been the light and sun of the 
Carrier's Home! 

The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they 
showed her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of 
sage old matrons, and affecting to be wondrously old 
and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure 
old way upon her husband's arm, attempting — she! such 
a bud of a little woman — to convey the idea of having 
abjured the vanities of the world in general, and of 
being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at 
all to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they showed 
her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, and 
pulling up his shirt collar to make him smart, and minc- 
ing merrily about that very room to teach him how to 
dance! 

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they 
showed her with the Blind Girl ; for," though she carried 
cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she 
went, she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer's 






216 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl's 
love for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her 
own good busy way of setting Bertha's thanks aside; 
her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of 
the visit in doing something useful to the house, and 
really working hard while feigning to make holiday; 
her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the 
Veal and Ham Pie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant 
little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the 
wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat 
foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the 
establishment — a something necessary to it, which it 
couldn't be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and 
loved her for. And once again they looked upon him 
all at once, appealingly, and seemed to say, while some 
among them nestled in her dress and fondled her, " Is 
this the wife who has betrayed your confidence!" 

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thought- 
ful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite 
seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, 
her falling hair. As he had seen her last. And when 
they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon 
him, but gathered close round her, and comforted and 
kissed her, and pressed on one another, to show sympathy 
and kindness to her, and forgot him altogether. 

Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the 
stars grew pale; the co]d day broke; the sun rose. The 
Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He 
had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. 
All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, 
Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had listened to 
its voice. All night, the household Faries had been busy 
with him. All night, she had been amiable and blame- 
less in the glass, except when that one shadow fell 
upon it. 

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and 
dressed himself. He couldn't go about his customary 
cheerful avocations — he wanted spirit for them — but it 
mattered the less, that it was Tackleton's wedding-day, 
and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He 
had thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot. 
But such plans were at an end. It was their own wed- 
ding-day, too. Ah! how little he had looked for such a 
close to such a year! 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 217 

The Carrier expected that Tackleton would pay him 
an early visit: and he was right. He had not walked to 
and fro before his own door many minutes, when he saw 
the Toy Merchant coming in his chaise along the road. 
As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton 
was dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and that he 
had decorated his horse's head with flowers and favours. 

The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than 
Tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably 
expressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed 
of this. His thoughts had other occupation. 

"John Peerybingle!" said Tackleton, with an air of 
condolence. " My good fellow, how do you find your- 
self this morning?" 

" I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton," re- 
turned the Carrier, shaking his head: "for I have been 
a good deal disturbed in my mind. But it's over 
now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some 
private talk?" 

"I came on purpose," returned Tackleton, alighting. 
" Never mind the horse. He'll stand quiet enough, with 
the reins over this post, if you'll give him a mouthful of 
hay." 

The Carrier having brought it from his stable and set 
it before him, they turned into the house. 

"You are not married before noon?" he said, " I 
think?" 

' ' No, " answered Tackleton. ' ' Plenty of time. Plenty 
of time." 

When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was 
rapping at the Stranger's door; which was only removed 
from it by a few steps. One of her very red eyes (for 
Tilly had been crying all night long, because her mis- 
tress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking 
very loud, and seemed frightened. 

"If you please, I can't make nobody hear," said Tilly, 
looking round. " I hope nobody an't gone and been and 
died if you please!" 

This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised 
with various new raps and kicks at the door, which led 
to no result whatever. 

" Shall I go?" said Tackleton. " It's curious." 

The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, 
signed to him to go if he would. 






218 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he, 
too, kicked and knocked; and he, too, failed to get the 
least reply. But he thought of trying the handle of the 
door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in, went in, and 
soon come running out again. 

"John Peerybingle," said Tackleton, in his ear. "I 
hope there has been nothing — nothing rash in the night?" 

The Carrier turned upon him quickly. 

"Because he's gone!" said Tackleton; "and the win- 
do ws's open. I don't see any marks — to be sure, it's almost 
on a level with the garden : but I was afraid there might 
have been some — some scuffle. Eh?" 

He nearly shut up the expressive eye, altogether; he 
looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his 
face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he 
would have screwed the truth out of him. 

" Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. "He went 
into that room last night, without harm in a word or deed 
from me, and no one has entered it since. He is away of 
his own free will. I'd go out gladly at that door, and 
beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so 
change the past that he had never come. But he has 
come and gone. And I have done with him!" 

" Oh!— Well, I think he has got off pretty easy," said 
Tackleton, taking a chair. 

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down, 
too, and shaded his face with his hand, for some little 
time, before proceeding. 

"You showed me last night, he said, at length, "my 
wife; my wife that I love; secretly — " 

"And" tenderly," insinuated Tackleton. 

" Conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him 
opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there's no 
sight I wouldn't have rather seen than that. I think 
there's no man in the world I wouldn't have rather had 
to show it me." 

"I confess to having had my suspicions always," said 
Tackleton. " And that has made me objectionable here, 
I know." 

" But as you did show it me," pursued the Carrier, not 
minding him; "and as you saw her, my wife, my wife 
that I love"— his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier 
and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in 
pursuance of a steadfast purpose — "as you saw her at 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 219 

this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also 
see with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know 
what my mind is upon the subject. For it's settled," 
said the Carrier, regarding him attentively. "And 
nothing can shake it now." 

Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, 
about its being necessary to vindicate something or 
other; but he was overawed by the manner of his com- 
panion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a some- 
thing dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the 
soul of generous honour dwelling in the man could have 
imparted. 

"I am a plain, rough man," pursued the Carrier, 
" with very little to recommend me. I am not a clever 
man, as you very well know. I am not a young man. 
I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, 
from a child, in her father's house'; because I knew 
how precious she was; because she had been my life, 
for years and years. There's many men I can't compare 
with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, 
I think!" 

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time 
with his foot, before resuming: 

" I often thought that though I wasn't good enough 
for her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps 
know her value better than another: and in this way I 
reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be 
possible that we should be married. And in the end, it 
came about, and we were married." 

"Hah!" said Tackleton, with a significant shake of his 
head. 

" I had studied myself; I had had experience of my- 
self; I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I 
should be," pursued the Carrier. "But I had not — I feel 
it now — sufficiently considered her." 

" To be sure," said Tackleton. "Giddiness, frivolity, 
fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left 
out of sight! Hah!" 

"You had best not interrupt me," said the Carrier, 
with some sternness, "till you understand me; and 
you're wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I'd have struck 
that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word 
against her, to-day I'd set my foot upon his face if he 
was my brother!" 






220 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

The Toy Merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He 
went on in a softer tone: 

" Did I consider/' said the Carrier, "that I took her — 
at her age, and with her beauty — from her young com- 
panions, and the many scenes of which she was the 
ornament; in which she was the brightest little star that 
ever shone, to shut her up from day to day in my dull 
house, and keep my tedious company? Did I consider 
how little suited I was to her sprightly humour, and how 
wearisome a plodding man like me must be, to one of her 
quick spirit? Did I consider that it was no merit in me, 
or claim in me, that I loved her, when everybody must, 
who knew her? Never. I took advantage of her hope- 
ful nature and her cheerful disposition; and I married 
her. I wish I never had! For her sake; not for mina!" 

The Toy Merchant gazed at him, without winking. 
Even the half -shut eye was open now. 

" Heaven bless her!" said the Carrier, "for the cheer- 
ful constancy with which she has tried to keep the 
knowledge of this from me! And Heaven help me, 
that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out before! 
Poor child! Poor Dot! I not to find it out, who have 
seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as 
our own was spoken of! I, who have seen the secret 
trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never sus- 
pected it till last night! Poor girl! That I could ever 
hope she would be fond of me! That I could ever be- 
lieve she was!" 

"She made a show of it," said Tackleton. "She 
made such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was 
the origin of my misgivings." 

And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, 
who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of 
him. 

"She has tried," said the poor Carrier, with greater 
emotion than he had exhibited yet; " I only now begin 
to know how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and 
zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she 
has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let 
the happiness I have known under this roof bear wit- 
ness! It will be some help and comfort to me, when I 
am here alone." 

"Here alone?" said Tackleton. "Oh! Then you do 
mean to take some notice of this?" 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 221 

'•' I mean," returned the Carrier, " to do lier the greatest 
kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my 
power. I can release her from the daily pain of an un- 
equal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it. She 
shall be as free as I can render her." 

"Make her reparation!" exclaimed Tackleton, twist- 
ing and turning his great ears with his hands. "There 
must be something wrong here. You didn't say that, 
of course." 

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy 
Merchant, and shook him like a reed. 

" Listen to me!" he said. "And take care that you 
hear me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly?" 

"Very plainly indeed," answered Tackleton. 

"As if I meant it?" 

" Very much as if you meant it." 

"I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," ex- 
claimed the Carrier. " On the spot where she has often 
sat beside me, with her sweet face looking into mine. 
I called up her whole life, day by day. I had her dear 
self, in its every passage, in review before me. And 
upon my soul she is innocent, if there is One to judge 
the innocent and guilty!" 

Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal household 
Fairies ! 

" Passion and distrust have left me!" said the Carrier; 
" and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy 
moment some old lover, better suited to her tastes and 
years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her 
will; returned. In an unhappy moment, taken by sur- 
prise, and wanting time to think of what she did, she 
made herself a party to his treachery, by concealing it. 
Last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed. 
It was wrong. Rut otherwise than this, she is innocent 
if there is truth on earth!" 

" If that is your opinion " — Tackleton began. 

" So, let her go!" pursued the Carrier. " Go, with my 
blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, 
and my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. 
Let her go, and have the peace of mind I wish her! 
She'll never hate me. She'll learn to like me better, 
when I'm not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain 
I have riveted, more lightly. This is the day on which 
I took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

from her home. To-day she shall return to it, and I 
will trouble her no more. Her father and mother will 
be here to-day — we had made a little plan for keeping 
it together — and they shall take her home. I can trust 
her, there, or anywhere. She leaves me without blame, 
and she will live so, I am sure. If I should die — I may 
perhaps while she is stiir young; I have lost some 
courage in a few hours — she'll find that I remembered 
her, and loved her to the last! This is the end of what 
you showed me. Now, it's over!" 

"Oh, no, John, not over. Do not say it's over yet. Not 
quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could not 
steal away, pretending to be ignorant of what has af- 
fected me with such deep gratitude. Do not say it's 
over, 'till the clock has struck again!" 

She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had re- 
mained there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed 
her eyes upon her husband. But she kept away from 
him, setting as wide a space as possible between them; 
and though she spoke with most impassioned earnest- 
ness, she went no nearer to him even then. How dif- 
ferent in this from her old self! 

"No hand can make the clock which will strike 
again for me the hours that are gone," replied the Car- 
rier, with a faint smile. "But let it be so, if you will, 
my dear. It will strike soon. It's of little matter what 
we say. I'd try to please you in a harder case than 
that." 

"Well!" muttered Tackleton. "I must be off, for 
when it strikes again, it will be necessary for me to be 
upon my way to church. Good-morning, John Peery- 
bingle. I'm sorry *to be deprived of the pleasure of 
your company. Sorry for the loss, and the occasion of 
it too!" 

" I have spoken plainly?" said the Carrier, accompany- 
ing him to the door. 

"Oh, quite!" 

"And you'll remember what J have said?" 

"Why, if you compel me to make the observation," 
said Tackleton; previously taking the precaution of 
getting into his chaise; " I must say that it was so very 
unexpected, that I'm far from being likely to forget it." 

' 'The better for us both, " returned the Carrier. ' ' Good- 
bye. I give you joy!" 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 223 

" I wish I could give it to you,''' said Tackleton. " As 
I can't; thank'ee. Between ourselves (as I told you 
before, eh?), I don't much think I shall have the less 
joy in my married life, because May hasn't been too 
officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good-bye! 
Take care of yourself." 

The Carrier stood looking after him until he was 
smaller in the distance than his horse's flowers and 
favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went 
strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neigh- 
bouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on 
the eve of striking. 

His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously; but 
often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how 
good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice 
she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently 
(still crying all the time), that Tilly was quite horrified. 

" Ow, if you please, don't!" said Tilly. " It's enough to 
dead and bury the Baby, so it is, if you please." 

"Will you bring him sometimes to see his father, 
Tilly," inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; " when I 
can't live here, and have gone to my old home?" 

"Ow, if you please, don't!" cried Tilly, throwing back 
her head, and bursting out into a howl — she looked at 
the moment uncommonly like Boxer; " Ow, if you please, 
don't! Ow, what has everybody gone and been and 
done with everybody, making everybody else so 
wretched ? O w-w-w-w !" 

The soft-hearted Slowboy tailed off at this juncture 
into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from 
its long suppression, that she must infallibly have 
awakened the Baby, and frightened him into something 
serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not en- 
countered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter. 
This spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, 
she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth 
wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which 
the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus man- 
ner on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with 
her face and head among the bedclothes, apparently de- 
riving much relief from those extraordinary operations. 

" Mary!" said Bertha. "Not at the marriage!" 

" I told her you would not be there, mum," whispered 
Caleb. " I heard as much last night. But bless you." 



224 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

said the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, 
" I don't care for what they say. I don't believe them. 
There an't much of me, but that little should be torn to 
pieces sooner than I'd trust a word against you!" 

He put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as 
a child might have hugged one of his own dolls. 

"Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said 
Caleb. " She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, 
and couldn't trust herself to be so near them on their 
wedding-day. So we started in good time, and came 
here. I have been thinking of what I have done," said 
Caleb, after a moment's pause; "I have been blaming 
myself till I hardly knew what to do or where to turn, 
for the distress of mind I have caused her; and I've 
come to the conclusion that I'd better, if you'll stay 
with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. You'll 
stay with me the while?" he inquired, trembling from 
head to foot. "I don't know what effect it may have 
upon her; I don't know what she'll think of me; I don't 
know that she'll ever care for her father afterwards. 
But it's best for her that she should be undeceived, and 
I must bear the consequences as I deserve!" 

"Mary," said Bertha, "where is your hand? Ah! 
here it is; here it is!" pressing it to her lips, with a 
smile, and drawing it through her arm. " I heard them 
speaking softly among themselves last night, of some 
blame against you. They were wrong." 

The Carrier's Wife was silent. Caleb answered for her. 

" They were wrong," he said. 

" I knew it!" cried Bertha, proudly. " I told them so. 
I scorned to hear a word! Blame her with justice!" 
she pressed the hand between her own, and the soft 
cheek against her face. " No ! I am not so blind as 
that." 

Her father went on one side of her, while Dot re- 
mained upon the other: holding her hand. 

" I know you all," said Bertha, " better than you 
think. But none so well as her. Not even you, father. 
There is nothing half so real and so true about me, as 
she is. If I could be restored to sight this instant, and 
not a word were spoken, I , could choose her from a 
crowd! My sister!" 

"Bertha, my dear!" said Caleb, "I have something 
on my mind I want to tell you, while we three are alone. 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 225 

Hear me kindly! I have a confession to make to you, 
my darling." 

"A confession, father?" 

" I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my 
child," said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his be- 
wildered face. "I have wandered from the truth, in- 
tending to be kind to you; and have been cruel." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and 
repeated, "Cruel!" 

"He accuses himself too strongly, Bertha," said Dot. 
"You'll say so, presently. You'll be the first to tell 
him so." 

"He cruel to me!" cried Bertha, with a smile of 
incredulity. 

" Not meaning it, my child," said Caleb. " But I have 
been: though I never suspected it till yesterday. My 
dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive me. The 
world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have 
represented it. The eyes you have trusted in have been 
false to you." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; 
but drew back, and clung closer to her friend. 

"Your road in life was rough, my poor one," said 
Caleb, "and I meant to smooth it for you. I have al- 
tered objects, changed the characters of people, invented 
many things that never have been, to make you hap- 
pier. I have had concealments from you, put decep- 
tions on you, God forgive me! and surrounded you with 
fancies." 

"But living people are not fancies?" she said hur- 
riedly, and turning very pale, and still retiring from 
him. "You can't change them." 

"I have done so, Bertha," pleaded Caleb. "There is 
one person that you know, my dove " — 

"Oh, father! why do* you say, I know?" she an- 
swered, in a term of keen reproach. "What and whom 
do I know! I who have no leader! I so miserably 
blind!" 

In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her 
hands, as if she were groping her away; then spread 
them, in a manner most forlorn and sad, upon her face. 

" The marriage that takes place to-day," said Caleb, 
" is with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master 
to you and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his 
16 






226 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

looks and in his nature. Cold and callous always. Un- 
like what I have painted him to you in everything, my 
child. In everything." 

''Oh, why/' cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it 
seemed, almost beyond endurance, " why did you ever 
do this! Why did you ever fill my. heart so full, and 
then come in like Death, and tear away the objects of 
my love! Oh, Heaven, how blind I am! How helpless 
and alone!" 

Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no re- 
ply but in his penitence and sorrow. 

She had been but a short time in this passion of 
regret, when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all 
but her, began to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, 
faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful, that her 
tears began to flow; and when the Presence which had 
been beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her, 
pointing to her father, they fell down like rain. 

She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon, and 
was conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence 
hovering about her father. 

" Mary," said the Blind Girl, " tell me what my home 
is. What it truly is." 

" It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare in- 
deed. The house wiU scarcely keep out wind and rain 
another winter. It is as roughly shielded from the 
weather. Bertha," Dot continued in a low, clear voice, 
"as your poor father in his sackcloth coat." 

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led the 
Carrier's little wife aside. 

"Those presents that I took such care of; that came 
almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me," 
she said, trembling; where did they come from ? Did 
you send them?" 

"No." 

"Who, then?" 

Dot saw she knew, already, and was silent. The 
Blind Girl spread her hands before her face again, but 
in quite a different manner now. 

" Dear Mary, a moment. One moment. More this 
way. Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. 
You'd not deceive me now; would you?" 

"No, Bertha, indeed!" 

" No, I am sure you would not. You have too much 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 22? 

pity for me. Mary, look across the room to where we 
were just now — to where my father is — my father, so 
compassionate and loving to me — and tell me what 
you see." 

"I see/' said Dot, who understood her well, " an old 
man sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the 
back, with his face resting on his hand. As if his child 
should comfort him, Bertha." 

"Yes, yes. She will. Go on." 

" He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is 
a spare, dejected, thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see 
him now, despondent and bowed down, and striving 
against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many 
times before, and striving hard in many ways for one 
great sacred object. And I honour his grey head, and 
bless him!" 

The Blind Girl broke away from her ; and throwing 
herself upon her knees before him, took the grey head 
to her breast. 

" It is my sight restored. It is my sight!" she cried. 
"I have been blind, and now my eyes are open. I 
never knew him ! To think I might have died, and 
never truly seen the father who has been so loving 
to me!" 

There were no words for Caleb's emotion. 

"There is not a gallant figure on this earth," ex- 
claimed the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, 
"that I would love so dearly, and would cherish so de- 
votedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the dearer, 
father! Never let them say I am blind again. There's 
not a furrow in his face, there's not a hair upon his 
head, that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks 
to Heaven!" 

Caleb managed to articulate, "My Bertha!" 

" And in my blindness, I believed him," said the girl, 
caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, "to be 
so different ! And having him beside me, day by day, 
so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!" 

" The fresh, smart father in the blue coat, Bertha," 
said poor Caleb. " He's gone!" 

" Nothing is gone," she answered. "Dearest father, 
no ! Everything is here — in you. The father that I 
loved so well; the father that I never loved enough, and 
never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to rever- 






228 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

ence and love, because he had such sympathy for me ; 
all are here in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul 
of all that was most dear to me is here — here, with the 
worn face, and the grey head. And I am not blind, 
father, any longer!" 

Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during 
this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but look- 
ing, now, towards the little Haymaker in the Moorish 
meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few min- 
utes of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous 
and excited state. 

" Father," said Bertha, hesitating. " Mary." 

" Yes, my dear," returned Caleb. "Here she is." 

" There is no change in her. You never told me any- 
thing of her that was not true?" 

"I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid," re- 
turned Caleb, "if I could have made her better than 
she was. But I must have changed her for the worse, 
if I had changed her at all. Nothing could improve her, 
Bertha." 

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked 
the question, her delight and pride in the reply and her 
renewed embrace of Dot, were charming to behold. 

" More changes than you think for may happen, 
though, my dear," said Dot. "■ Changes for the better, 
I mean ; changes for great joy to some of us. You 
mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such 
should ever happen, and affect you! Are those wheels 
upon the road? You've a quick ear, Bertha. Are they 
wheels?" 

" Yes. Coming very fast." 

"I — I — I know you have a quick ear," said Dot, 
placing her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking 
on, as fast as she could, to hide its palpitating state, 
"because I have noticed it often, and because you were 
so quick to find out that strange step last night. 
Though why you should have said, as I very well recol- 
lect you did say, Bertha, 'whose step is that?' and why 
you should have taken any greater observation of it 
than of any other step, I don't know. Though, as I said 
just now, there are great changes in the world: great 
changes: and we can't do better than prepare ourselves 
to be surprised at hardly anything." 

Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 229 



spoke to him, no less than to his daughter. He saw her, 
with astonishment, so fluttered and distressed that she 
could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair, to save 
herself from falling. 

"They are wheels indeed!" she panted, "Coming 
nearer! Nearer! Very close! And now you hear them 
stopping at the garden gate! And now you hear a step 
outside the door — the same step, Bertha, is it not! — and 
now!" — 

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and 
running up to Caleb, put her hands upon his eyes, as a 
young man rushed into the room, and flinging away his 
hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them. 

" Is it over?" cried Dot. 

"Yes!" 

"Happily over?" 

"Yes!" 

" Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you 
ever hear the like of it before?" cried Dot. 

" If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive," 
— said Caleb, trembling. 

" He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands from 
his eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy; "look at him ! 
See where he stands before you, healthy and strong ! 
Your own dear son. Your own dear living, loving 
brother, Bertha!" 

All honour to the little creature for her transports! 
All honour to her tears and laughter, when the three were 
locked in one another's arms! All honour to the hearti- 
ness with which she met the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with 
his dark, streaming hair, half way, and never turned 
her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it, 
freely, and to press her to his bounding heart! 

And honour to the Cuckoo, too — why not! — for burst- 
ing out of the trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a 
housebreaker, and hiccoughing twelve times on the 
assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy! 

The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he 
might, to find himself in such good company. 

"Look, John!" said Caleb, exultingly, "look here! 
My own boy, from the Golden South Americas! My 
own son! Him that you fitted out, and sent away your- 
self! Him that you were always such a friend to!" 

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but 






230 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a re- 
membrance of the Deaf Man in the Cart, said: 

" Edward! Was it you?" 

"Now tell him all!" cried Dot. "Tell him all, Ed- 
ward: and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me 
spare myself in his eyes, ever again." 

" I was the man," said Edward. 

"And could you steal, disguised, into the house of 
your old friend?" rejoined the Carrier. " There was a 
frank boy once — how many years is it, Caleb, since we 
heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we thought? 
— who never would have done that." 

" There was a generous friend of mine, once; more a 
father to me than a friend," said Edward, " who never 
would have judged me, or any other man, unheard. 
You were he. So I am certain you will hear me now." 

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still 
kept far away from him, replied, ' ' Well, that's but fair. 
I will." 

" You must know that when I left here, a boy," said 
Edward, "I was in love, and my love was returned. 
She was a very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell 
me) didn't know her own mind. But I knew mine, and 
I had a passion for her." 

" You had!" exclaimed the Carrier. " You!" 

"Indeed I had," returned the other. "And she re- 
turned it. I have ever since believed she did, and now 
I am sure she did." 

" Heaven help me!" said the Carrier. "This is worse 
than all." 

" Constant to her," said Edward, "and returning full 
of hope, after many harships and perils, to redeem my 
part of our old contract, I heard, twenty miles away, 
that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me; 
and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer 
man. I had no mind to reproach her; but I wished to 
see her, and prove beyond dispute that this was true. I 
hoped she might have been forced into it, against her 
own desire and recollection. It would be small comfort 
but it would be some, I thought, and on I came. That 
I might have the truth, the real truth; observing freely 
for myself, and judging for myself, without obstruction 
on the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I 
had any) before her, on the other; I dressed myself un- 









THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 231 



like myself — you know how; and waited on the road — 
you know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither 
had — had she," pointing to Dot, ''until I whispered in 
her ear at that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me." 

" But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had 
come back," sobbed Dot, now speaking to herself , as she 
had Jburned to do, all through this narrative; " and 
when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all 
means to keep his secret close; for his old friend John 
Peerybingle, was much too open in his nature, and too 
clumsy in all artifice — being a clumsy man in general," 
said Dot, half laughing and half crying — "to keep it for 
him. And when she — that's me, John," sobbed the little 
woman — " told him all, and how his sweetheart had be- 
lieved him to be dead; and how she had at last been 
over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the 
silly, dear old thing called advantageous; and when she 
— that's me again, John — told him they were not yet 
married (though close upon it), and that it would be 
nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no 
love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy 
to hear it; then she — that's me again — said she would go 
between them, as she had often done before in old times, 
John, and would sound his sweetheart and be sure that 
what she — me again, John — said and thought was right. 
And it was right, John! And they were brought to- 
gether, John! And they were married, John, an hour 
ago! And here's the Bride! And Gruff and Tackleton 
may die a bachelor! And I'm a happy little woman. 
May, God bless you!" 

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be any- 
thing to the purpose; and never so completely irresisti- 
ble as in her present transports. There never were con- 
gratulations so endearing and delicious, as those she 
lavished on herself and on the Bride. 

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest 
Carrier had stood confounded. Flying now towards her, 
Dot stretched out her hand to stop him, and retreated as 
before. 

"No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, 
John, till you've heard every word I have to say. It 
was wrong to have a secret from you, John. I'm very 
sorry. I didn't think it any harm, till I came and sat 
down by you on the little stool last night. But when I 










232 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

knew by what was written in your face, that you had 
seen me walking in the gallery with Edward, and when 
I knew what you thought, I felt how giddy and how 
wrong it was. But oh, dear John, how could you, 
could you think so?" 

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peery- 
bingle would have caught her in his arms. But no; she 
wouldn't let him. 

"Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long 
time yet! When I was sad about this intended marriage, 
dear, it was because I remembered May and Edward 
such young lovers; and knew that her heart was away 
from Tackleton. You believe that now, don't you, 
John?" 

John was going to make another rush at this appeal; 
but she stopped him again. 

" No; keep there, please, John! When I la,ugh at you 
as I sometimes do, John, and call you clumsy, and a 
dear old goose, and names of that sort, it's because I 
love you, John, so well, and take such pleasure in your 
ways, and wouldn't see you altered in the least respect 
to have you made a king to-morrow." 

"Hooroar!" said Caleb, with unusual vigour. "My 
opinion!" 

"And when I speak of people being middle-aged, and 
steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum 
couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only be- 
cause I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like, 
sometimes, to act as a kind of Play with Baby, and all 
that: and make believe." 

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. 
But she was very nearly too late. 

"No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you 
please, John! What I want most to tell you, I have kept to 
the last. My dear, good, generous John, when we were 
talking the other night about the Cricket, I had it on 
my lips to say, that at first I did not love you quite so 
dearly as I do now; when I first came home here, I was 
half afraid that I mightn't learn to love you every bit 
as well as I hoped and prayed I might — being so very 
young, John! But, dear John, every day and hour I 
loved you more and more. And if I could have loved 
you better than I do, the noble words I heard you say 
this morning would have made me. But I can't. All 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 233 

the affection that I had (it was a great deal, John) I 
gave you, as you well deserved, long, long ago, and I 
have no more to give. Now, my dear husband, take me 
to your heart again! That's my home, John; and never, 
never think of sending me to any other!" 

You never will derive go much delight from seeing a 
glorious little woman in the arms of a third party, as 
you would have felt if you had seen Dot run into the 
Carrier's embrace. It was the most complete, unmiti- 
gated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever 
you beheld in all your days. 

You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect 
rapture; and you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you 
may be sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, 
who wept copiously for joy, and, wishing to include her 
young charge in the general interchange of congratula- 
tions, handed round the Baby to everybody in succes- 
sion, as if it were something to drink. 

But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again out- 
side the door; and somebody exclaimed that Gruff and 
Tackleton was coming back. Speedily that worthy gen- 
tleman appeared, looking warm and flustered. 

" Why, what the devil's this, John Peerybingle!" said 
Tackleton. " There's some mistake. I appointed Mrs. 
Tackleton to meet me at the church, and I'll swear I 
passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she 
is! I beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the pleasure of 
knowing you; but if you can do me the favour to spare 
this young lady, she has rather a particular engagement 
this morning." 

" But I can't spare her," returned Edward. " I couldn't 
think of it." 

" What do you mean, you vagabond?" said Tackleton. 

" I mean, that as I can make allowance for your be- 
ing vexed," returned the other with a smile, " I am as 
deaf to harsh discourse this morning as I was to all dis- 
course last night." 

The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the 
start he gave! 

"I am sorry, sir," said Edward, holding out May's left 
hand, and especially the third finger, "that the young 
lady can't accompany you to church; but as she has been 
there once, this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her." 

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a 



234 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

little piece of silver paper, apparently containing a ring, 
from his waistcoat pocket. 

"Miss Slowboy," said Tackleton. "Will you have 
the kindness to throw that in the fire? Thank'ee." 

" It was a previous engagement, quite an old engage- 
ment, that prevented my wife from keeping her appoint- 
ment with you, I assure j r ou," said Edward. 

" Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge 
that I revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told him, 
many times, I never could forget it," said May, blush- 
ing. 

"Oh, certainly!" said Tackleton. "Oh, to be sure. 
Oh, it's all right, it's quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plum- 
mer, I infer?" 

" That's the name," returned the bridegroom. 

" Ah! I shouldn't have known you, sir," said Tackle- 
ton, scrutinising his face narrowly, and making a low 
bow. " I give you joy, sir!" 

"Thank'ee." 

" Mrs. Peerybingle," said Tackleton, turning suddenly 
to where she stood with her husband; " I'm sorry. You 
haven't done me a very great kindness, but, upon my 
life, I am sorry. You are better than I thought you. 
John Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; 
that's enough. It's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen, 
all, and perfectly satisfactory. Good-morning!" 

With these words he carried it off, and carried him- 
self off, too: merely stopping at the door, to take tho 
flowers and favours from his horse's head, and to kick 
that animal once, in the ribs, as a means of informing 
him that there was a screw loose in his arrangements. 

Of course, it became a serious duty now, to make such 
a day of it, as should mark these events for a high 
Feast and Festival in the Peerybingle Calendar for ever- 
more. Accordingly, Dot went to work to produce such 
an entertainment as should reflect undying honour on 
the house and on every one concerned; and in a very 
short space of time she was up to her dimpled elbows in 
flour, and whitening the Carrier's coat, every time he 
came near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss. 
That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the 
turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron pots full of 
cold water on the fire, and made himself useful in all sorts 
of ways: while a couple of professional assistants, hastily 






THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 235 

called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on a 
point of life or death, ran against each other in all the 
doorways and round all the corners, and everybody 
tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the Baby, everywhere. 
Tilly never came out in such force before. Her ubiquity 
was the theme of general admiration. She was a 
stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty min- 
utes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half -past 
two precisely; and a pit-fall in the garret at five-and- 
twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it 
were, a test and touchstone for every description of 
matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was 
in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, 
into close acquaintance with it. 

Then there was a great Expedition set on foot to go 
and find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to 
that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by 
force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when 
the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to 
no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable number of 
times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! 
and couldn't be got to say anything else, except "Now 
carry me to the grave:" which seemed absurd, on account 
of her not being dead, or anything at all like it. After 
a time she lapsed into a state of dreadful calmness, and 
observed that when that unfortunate train of circum- 
stances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had fore- 
seen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to 
every species of insult and contumely; and that she was 
glad to find it was the case; and begged they wouldn't 
trouble themselves about her — for what was she? — oh, 
dear! a nobody! — but would forget that such a being 
lived, and would take their course in life without her. 
From this bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an 
angry one, in which she gave vent to the remarkable 
expression that the worm would turn if trodden on; and, 
after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they 
had only given her their confidence, what might she not 
have had it in her power to suggest! Taking advantage 
of this crisis in her feelings, the Expedition embraced 
her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on 
her way to John Peerybingle's in a state of unimpeach- 
able gentility; with a paper parcel at her side containing 
a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre. 



236 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come, in 
another little chaise; and they were behind their time; 
and fears were entertained; and there was much looking 
out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding- always 
would look in the wrong and morally impossible direc- 
tion; and being apprised thereof, hoped she might take 
the liberty of looking where she pleased. At last they 
came; a chubby little couple, joggling along in a snug 
and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the 
Dot family; and Dot and her mother, side by side, were 
wonderful to see. They were so like each other. 

Then Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance 
with May's mother; and May's mother always stood on 
her gentility; and Dot's mother never stood on anything 
but her active little feet. And old Dot — so to call Dot's 
father, I forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind 
—took liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and 
seemed to think a cap but so much starch and muslin, 
and didn't defer himself at all to the Indigo Trade, but 
said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. Field- 
ing's summing up, was a good-natured kind of man — but 
coarse, my dear. 

I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her 
wedding-gown, my benison on her bright face! for any 
money. No! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so 
ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh 
sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one 
among them. To have missed the dinner would have 
been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need 
eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which 
they drank The Wedding Day, would have been the 
greatest miss of all. 

After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling 
Bowl. As I'm a living man, hoping to keep so, for a 
year or two, he sang it through. 

And, by-the-bye, a most unlooked-for incident oc- 
curred, just as he finished the last verse. 

There was a tap at the door; and a man came stag- 
gering in, without saying with your leave, or by your 
leave, with something heavy on his head. Setting this 
down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the 
centre of the nuts and apples, he said: 

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got 
no use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it." 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 237 

And with those words, he walked off. 

There was some surprise among the company, as you 
may imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite 
discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned, and 
related a narrative of a cake which, within her knowl- 
edge, had turned a seminary for young ladies blue. But 
she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut 
by May; with much ceremony and rejoicing. 

I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came 
another tap at the door, and the same man appeared 
again, having under his arm a vast brown paper parcel. 

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few 
toys for the Babby. They ain't ugly." 

After the delivery of which expressions, he retired 
again. 

The whole party would have experienced great diffi- 
culty in finding words for their astonishment, even if 
they had had ample time to seek them. But they had 
none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the 
door behind him, when there came another tap, and 
Tackleton himself walked in. 

"Mrs. Peerybingle !" said the Toy Merchant, hat in 
hand, " I'm sorry. I'm more sorry than I was this morn- 
ing. I have had time to think of it. John Peerybingle! 
I am sour by disposition; but I can't help being sweet- 
ened, more or less, by coming face to face with such a 
man as you. Caleb! This unconscious little nurse gave 
me a broken hint last night, of which I have found the 
thread. I blush to think how easily I might have bound 
you and your daughter to me, and what a miserable 
idiot I was, when I took her for one! Friends, one and 
all, my house is very lonely to-night, I have not so 
much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared them 
all away. Be gracious to me; let me join this happy 
party!" " 

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such 
a fellow. What had he been doing with himself all his 
life, never to have known, before, his great capacity of 
being jovial! Or what had the Fairies been doing with 
him, to have effected such a change! 

"John! you won't send me home this evening, will 
you?" whispered Dot. 

He had been very near it, though. 

There wanted but one living creature to make the 



238 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. 

party complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there 
he was, very thirsty with hard running, and engaged in 
hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow 
pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its journey's end, 
very much disgusted with the absence of his master, and 
stupendously rebellious to the Deputy. After lingering 
about the stable for some little time, vainly attempting 
to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of returning 
on his own account, he had walked into the tap-room 
and laid himself down before the fire. But suddenly 
yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was a hum- 
bug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned 
tail, and come home. 

There was a dance in the evening. With which gen- 
eral mention of that recreation, I should have left it 
alone, if I had not some reason to suppose that it was 
quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon 
figure. It was formed in an odd way; in this way. 

Edward, that sailor-fellow — a good, free, dashing sort 
of fellow he was — had been telling them various mar- 
vels concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and 
gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head to 
jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha's 
harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as you 
seldom hear. Dot (sly little piece of affectation when 
she chose) said her dancing days were over; J think be- 
cause the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked 
sitting by him best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of 
course, but to say her dancing days were over, after 
that; and everybody said the same, except May; May 
was ready. 

So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to 
dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune. 

Well! if you'll believe me, they have not been dancing 
five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe 
away, takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the 
room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite won- 
derfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims 
across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round the waist, and 
follows suit. Old Dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, 
all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot into the middle of the 
dance, and is the foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees 
this, than he clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands and 
goes off at score; Miss Slowboy, firm in the belief that 



THE CRICKET OJST THE HEARTH. 239 

diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting 
any number of concussions with them, is your only 
principle of footing it. 

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, 
Chirp, Chirp; and how the kettle hums! 



But what is this! Even as I listen to them, blithely, 
and turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little 
figure very pleasant to me, she and the rest have van- 
ished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket sings upon 
the Hearth; a broken child's-toy lies upon the ground; 
and nothing else remains. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 



A LOVE STORY. 



PART THE FIRST. 

Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stal- 
wart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was 
fought. It was fought upon a long summer day, when 
the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower, 
formed by the Almighty hand to be a perfumed goblet 
for the dew, felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood 
that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect, de- 
riving its delicate colour from harmless leaves and 
herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and 
marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. 
The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the 
edges of its wings. The stream ran red. The trodden 
ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools 
collected in the prints of human feet and horses' hoofs, 
the one prevailing hue still lowered and glimmered at 
the sun. 

Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the 
moon beheld upon that field, when, coming up above 
the black line of distant rising-ground, softened and 
blurred at the edge by trees, she rose into the sky and 
looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces that 
had once at mothers' breasts sought mothers' eyes, or 
slumbered happily. Heaven keep us from a knowledge 
of the secrets whispered afterwards upon the tainted 
wind that blew across the scene of that day's work and 
that night's death and suffering! Many a lonely moon 
was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star 
kept mournful watch upon it, and many a wind from 

17 p241 



242 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

every quarter of the earth blew over it, before the traces 
of the fight were worn away. 

They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived 
in little things; for Nature, far above the evil passions 
of men, soon recovered her serenity, and smiled upon 
the guilty battle-ground as she had done before, when it 
was innocent. The larks sang high above it; the swal- 
lows skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro; the 
shadows of the flying clouds pursued each other 
swiftly, over grass, and corn, and turnip-field, and 
wood, and over roof and church-spire in the nestling 
town among the trees, away into the bright distance on 
the borders of the sky and earth, where the red sunsets 
faded. Crops were sown, and grew up, and were gath- 
ered in; the stream that had been crimsoned, turned a 
water-mill; men whistled at the plough; gleaners and 
haymakers were seen in quiet groups at work; sheep 
and oxen pastured; boys whooped and called, in fields, 
to scare away the birds; smoke rose from cottage chim- 
neys; Sabbath bells rang peacefully; old people lived 
and died; the timid creatures of the field, and simple 
flowers of the bush and garden, grew and withered in 
their destined terms; and all upon the fierce and bloody 
battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had 
been killed in the great fight. 

But there were deep green patches in the growing 
corn at first, that people looked at awfully. Year after 
year they reappeared; and it was known that under- 
neath those fertile spots, heaps of men and horses lay 
buried, indiscriminately, enriching the ground. The 
husbandmen who ploughed those places, shrunk from 
the great worms abounding there; and the sheaves they 
yielded were, for many a long year, called the Battle 
Sheaves, and set apart; and no one ever knew a Battle 
Sheaf to be among the last load at a Harvest Home. For 
a long time, every furrow that was turned revealed 
some fragments of the fight. For a long time, there 
were wounded trees upon the battle-ground; and scraps 
of hacked and broken fence and wall, where deadly 
struggles had been made; and trampled parts where not 
a leaf or blade would grow. For a long time, no village 
girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest 
flower from that field of death: and after many a year 
had come and gone, the berries growing there were 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 243 

still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand 
that plucked them. 

The Seasons in their course, however, though they 
passed as lightly as the summer clouds themselves, ob- 
literated, in the lapse of time, even these remains of the 
old conflict; and wore away such legendary traces of it 
as the neighbouring people carried in their minds, until 
they dwindled into old wives' tales, dimly remembered 
round the winter fire, and waning every year. Where 
the wild flowers and berries had so long remained upon 
the stem untouched, gardens arose, and houses were 
built, and children played at battles on the turf. The 
wounded trees had long ago made Christmas logs, and 
blazed and roared away. The deep green patches were 
no greener now than the memory of those who lay in 
dust below. The ploughshare still turned up from time 
to time some rusty bits of metal, but it was hard to say 
what use they had ever served, and those who found 
them wondered and disputed. An old dinted corslet, 
and a helmet, had been hanging in the church so long, 
that the same weak half -blind old man, who tried in vain 
to make them out above the white-washed arch, had 
marvelled at them as a baby. If the host slain upon the 
field could have been for a moment reanimated in the 
forms in which they fell, each upon the spot that was 
the bed of his untimely death, gashed and ghastly sol- 
diers would have stared in, hundreds deep, at household 
door and window; and would have risen on the hearths 
of quiet homes; and would have been the garnered store 
of barns and granaries; and would have started up be- 
tween the cradled infant and its nurse; and would have 
floated with the stream, and whirled round on the mill, 
and crowded the orchard, and burdened the meadow, 
and piled the rickyard high with dying men. So altered 
was the battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands 
had been killed in the great fight. 

Nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred 
years ago, than in one little orchard attached to an old 
stone house with a honeysuckle porch; where, on a 
bright autumn morning, there were sounds of music 
and laughter, and where two girls danced merrily 
together on the grass, while some half-dozen peasant 
women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from 
the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share 




2U THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

their enjoyment. It was a pleasant, lively, natural 
scene; a beautiful day, a retired spot; and the two girls, 
quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the freedom 
and gaiety of their hearts. 

If there were no such thing as display in the world, 
my private opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, 
that we might get on a great deal better than we do, 
and might be infinitely more agreeable company than 
we are. It was charming to see how these girls 
danced. They had no spectators but the apple-pickers 
on the ladders. They were very glad to please them, 
but they danced to please themselves (or at least you 
would have supposed so); and you could no more help 
admiring, than they could help dancing. How they did 
dance! 

Not like opera-dancers. Not at all. And not like 
Madame Anybody's finished pupils. Not the least. It 
was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor 
even country-dance dancing. It was neither in the old 
style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the 
English style: though it may have been, by accident, a 
trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous 
one, I am told, deriving a delightful air of off-hand in- 
spiration, from the chirping little castanets. As they 
danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves 
of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly 
round and round, the influence of their airy motion 
seemed to spread and spread, in the sun-lighted scene, 
like an expanding circle in the water. Their streaming 
hair and fluttering skirts, the elastic grass beneath their 
feet, the boughs that rustled in the morning air — the 
flashing leaves, the speckled shadows on the soft green 
ground — the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, 
glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily — everything 
between the two girls, and the man and team at plough 
upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the 
sky as if they were the last things in the world — seemed 
dancing too. 

At last the younger of the dancing sisters, out of 
breath, and laughing gaily, threw herself upon a bench 
to rest. The other leaned against a tree hard by. The 
music, a wandering harp and fiddle, left off with a 
flourish, as if it boasted of its freshness; though, the 
truth is, it had gone at such a pace, and worked itself 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

to such a pitch of competition with the dancing, that it 
never could have held on half a minute longer. The 
apple-pickers on the ladders raised a hum and murmur 
of applause, and then, in keeping with the sound, be- 
stirred themselves to work again like bees. 

The more actively, perhaps, because an elderly gen- 
tleman, who was no other than Doctor Jeddler himself 
— it was Doctor Jeddler's house and orchard, you should 
know, and these were Doctor Jeddler's daughters — came 
bustling out to see what was the matter, and who the 
deuce played music on his property, before breakfast. 
For he was a great philosopher, Doctor Jeddler, and not 
very musical. 

" Music and dancing to-day!" said the Doctor, stop- 
ping short, and speaking to himself, " I thought they 
dreaded to-day. But it's a world of contradictions. 
Why, Grace, why, Marion!" he added, aloud, "is the 
world more mad than usual this morning?" 

" Make some allowance for it, father, if it be," replied 
his younger daughter, Marion, going close to him, and 
looking into his face, "for it's somebody's birthday." 

"Somebody's birthday, Puss," replied the Doctor. 
"Don't you know it's always somebody's birthday? 
Did you never hear how many new performers enter on 
this — ha! ha! ha! — it's impossible to speak gravely of it 
— on this preposterous and ridiculous business called 
Life, every minute?" 

"No, father!" 

"No, not you, of course; you're a woman — almost," 
said the Doctor. "By-the-bye," and he looked into the 
pretty face, still close to his, "I suppose it's your birth- 
day." 

"No! Do you really, father?" cried his pet daughter, 
pursing up her red lips to be kissed. 

" There! Take my love with it," said the Doctor, im- 
printing his upon them; "and many happy returns of 
the — the idea! — of the day. The notion of wishing 
happy returns in such a farce as this," said the Doctor to 
himself, "is good! Ha! ha! ha!" 

Doctor Jeddler was, as I have said, a great philoso- 
pher, and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, 
to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke; as 
something too absurd to be considered seriously by any 
rational man. His system of belief had been, in the b^- 






246 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

ginning, part and parcel of the battle-ground on which 
he lived, as you shall presently understand. 

"Well! But how did you get the music?" asked the 
Doctor. " Poultry-stealers, of course! Where did the 
minstrels come from?" 

"Alfred sent the music/' said his daughter Grace, ad- 
justing a few simple flowers in her sister's hair, with 
which, in her admiration of that youthful beauty, she 
had herself adorned it half an hour before, and which 
the dancing had disarranged. 

"Oh! Alfred sent the music, did he?" returned the 
Doctor. 

"Yes. He met it coming out of the town as he was 
entering early. The men are travelling on foot, and 
rested there last night; and as it was Marion's birthday, 
and he thought it would please her, he sent them on, 
with a pencilled note to me, saying that if I thought so, 
too, they had come to serenade her." 

"Ay, ay," said the Doctor, carelessly, "he always 
takes your opinion." 

"And my opinion being favourable," said Grace, good- 
humouredly; and pausing for a moment to admire the 
pretty head she decorated, with her own thrown back; 
" and Marion being in high spirits, and beginning to 
dance, I joined her. And so we danced to Alfred's 
music till we were out of breath. And we thought the 
music all the gayer for being sent by Alfred. Didn't 
we, dear Marion?" 

" Oh, I don't know, Grace. How you tease me about 
Alfred," 

"Tease you by mentioning your lover?" said her 
sister. 

" I am sure I don't much care to have him mentioned," 
said the wilful beauty, stripping the petals from some 
flowers she held, and scattering them on the ground. 
" I am almost tired of hearing of him; and as to his being 
my lover — " 

"Hush! Don't speak lightly of a true heart, which is 
all your own, Marion," cried her sister, "even in jest. 
There is not a truer heart than Alfred's in the world!" 

"No — no," said Marion, raising her eyebrows with a 
pleasant air of careless consideration, "perhaps not. 
But I don't know that there's any great merit in that. 
I — I don't want him to be so very true. I never asked 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 247 

him. If he expects that I — . But, dear Grace, why 
need we talk of him at all, just now!" 

It was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the 
blooming sisters twined together, lingering among the 
trees, conversing thus, with earnestness opposed to light- 
ness, yet, with love responding tenderly to love. And 
it was very curious indeed to see the younger sister's 
eyes suffused with tears, and something fervently and 
deeply felt, breaking through the wilfulness of what she 
said, and striving with it painfully. 

The difference between them, in respect of age, could 
not exceed four years at most; but Grace, as often hap- 
pens in such cases, when no mother watches over both 
(the Doctor's wife was dead), seemed, in her gentle care 
of her young sister, and in the steadiness of her devotion 
to her, older than she was; and more removed, in course 
of nature, from all competition with her, or participation, 
otherwise than through her sympathy and true affection, 
in her wayward fancies, than their ages seemed to war- 
rant. Great character of mother, that, even in this 
shadow and faint reflection of it, purifies the heart, and 
raises the exalted nature nearer to the angels ! 

The Doctor's reflections, as he looked after them, and 
heard the purport of their discourse, were limited at 
first to certain merry meditations on the folly of all loves 
and likings, and the idle imposition practised on them- 
selves by young people, who believed for a moment, 
that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, 
and were always undeceived — always! 

But the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of 
Grace, and her sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet 
including so much constancy and bravery of spirit, 
seemed all expressed to him in the contrast between 
her quiet household figure and that of his younger and 
more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake — 
sorry for them both— that life should be such a very 
ridiculous business as it was.' 

The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his 
children, or either of them, helped in any way to make 
the scheme a serious one. But then he was a Phi- 
losopher. 

A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, 
by chance, over that common Philosopher's stone (much 
more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist's 



248 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

researches), which sometimes trips up kind and generous 
men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross 
and every precious thing to poor account. 

" Britain!" cried the Doctor. "Britain! Halloa!" 

A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discon- 
tented face, emerged from the house, and returned to 
this call the unceremonious acknowledgment of "Now 
then!" 

" Where's the breakfast table?" said the Doctor. 

"In the house," returned Britain. 

"Are you going to spread it out here, as your were 
told last night?" said the Doctor. "Don't you know 
that there are gentlemen coming? That there's business 
to be done this morning, before the coach comes by? 
That this is a very particular occasion ?" 

"I couldn't do anything, Doctor Jeddler, till the 
woman had done getting in the apples, could I?" said 
Britain, his voice rising with his reasoning, so that it 
was very loud at last. 

"Well, have they done now?" returned the Doctor, 
looking at his watch, and clapping his hands. " Come! 
make haste! where's Clemency?" 

"Here am I, Mister," said a voice from one of the 
ladders, which a pair of clumsy feet descended briskly. 
" It's all done now. Clear away, gals. Everything shall 
be ready for you in half a minute, mister." 

With that she began to bustle about most vigour ously ; 
presenting, as she did so, an appearance sufficiently 
peculiar to justify a word of introduction. 

She was about thirty years old, and had a sufficiently 
plump and cheerful face, though it was twisted up into 
an odd expression of tightness that made it comical. 
But the extraordinary homeliness of her gait and man- 
ner would have superseded any face in the world. To 
say that she had two left legs, and somebody else's 
arms, and that all four limbs seemed to be out of joint, 
and to start from perfectly wrong places when they were 
set in motion, is to offer the mildest outline of the reality. 
To say that she was perfectly content and satisfied with 
these arrangements, and regarded them as being no 
business of hers, and that she took her arms and legs 
as they came, and allowed them to dispose of them- 
selves just as it happened, is to render faint justice to 
her equanimity. Her dress was a prodigious pair of 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 249 

self-willed shoes, that never wanted to go where her 
feet went; blue stockings; a printed gown of many col- 
ours and the most hideous pattern procurable for money; 
and a white apron. She always wore short sleeves, and 
always had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which 
she took so lively an interest, that she was continually 
trying to turn them round and get impossible views of 
them. In general, a little cap perched somewhere on 
her head; though it was rarely to be met with in the 
place usually occupied in other subjects, by that article 
of dress; but, from head to foot she was scrupulously 
clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. 
Indeed, her laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in 
her own conscience as well as in the public eye, gave 
rise to one of her most startling evolutions, which was 
to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of wooden handle 
(part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk), and 
wrestle as it were with her garments, until they fell into 
a symmetrical arrangement. 

Such, in outward form and garb, was Clemency New- 
come; who was supposed to have unconsciously origi- 
nated a corruption of her own Christian name, from 
Clementina (but nobody knew, for the deaf old mother, 
a very phenomenon of age, whom she had supported 
almost from a child, was dead, and she had no other 
relation); who now busied herself in preparing the 
table, and who stood, at intervals, with her bare red 
arms crossed, rubbing her grazed elbows with opposite 
hands, and staring at it very composedly, until she 
suddenly remembered something else it wanted, and 
jogged off to fetch it. 

"Here are them two lawyers a-coming, mister!" said 
Clemency, in a tone of no very great good-will. 

"Aha!" cried the Doctor, advancing to the gate to 
meet them. " Good-morning, good-morning! Grace, 
my dear! Marion! Here are Messrs. Snitchey and 
Craggs. Where's Alfred?" 

" He'll be back directly, father, no doubt," said Grace. 
" He had so much to do this morning in his preparation 
for departure, that he was up and out by daybreak. 
Good-morning, gentlemen." 

"Ladies!" said Mr. Snitchey, "for Self and Craggs/' 
who bowed, "good-morning, miss," to Marion, "I kiss 
your hand." Which he did. " And I wish you " — which 






250 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

he might or might not, for he didn't look, at first sight, 
like a gentleman troubled with many warm outpourings 
of soul, in behalf of other people — " a hundred happy 
returns of this auspicious day." 

" Ha,ha,ha!" laughed the Doctor thoughtfully, with his 
hands in his pockets. ' 'The great farce in a hundred acts !" 

"You wouldn't, I am sure," said Mr. Snitchey, stand- 
ing a small professional blue bag against one leg of the 
table, "cut the great farce short for this actress, at all 
events, Doctor Jeddler." 

" No," returned the Doctor. " God forbid! May she 
live to laugh at it, as long as she can laugh, and then 
say, with the French wit, ' The farce is ended; draw the 
curtain.'" 

" The French wit," said Mr. Snitchey, peeping sharply 
into his blue bag, was wrong, Doctor Jeddler, and your 
philosophy is altogether wrong, depend upon it, as I 
have often told you. Nothing serious in life! What do 
you call law?" 

"A joke," replied the Doctor. 

" Did you ever go to law?" asked Mr. Snitchey, look- 
ing out of the blue bag. 

"Never," returned the Doctor. 

"If you ever do," said Mr. Snitchey, " perhaps you'll 
alter that opinion." 

Craggs, who seemed to be represented by Snitchey, 
and to be conscious of little or no separate existence or 
personal individuality, offered a remark of his own in 
this place. It involved the only idea of which he did 
not stand seized and possessed in equal moieties with 
Snitchey; but he had some partners in it among the 
wise men of the world. 

" It's made a great deal too easy," said Mr. Craggs. 

"Law is?" asked the Doctor. 

" Yes," said Mr. Craggs, " everything is. Everything 
appears to me to be made too easy, now-a-days. It's 
the vice of these times. If the world is a joke (I am not 
prepared to say it isn't), it ought to be made a very dif- 
ficult joke to crack. It ought to be as hard a struggle, 
sir, as possible. That's the intention. But it's being 
made far too easy. We are oiling the gates of life. 
They ought to be rusty. We shall have them beginning 
to turn, soon, with a smooth sound. Whereas they 
ought to grate upon their hinges, sir," 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 251 

Mr. Craggs seemed positively to grate upon his own 
hinges, as he delivered this opinion; to which he com- 
municated immense effect — being a cold, hard, dry man, 
dressed in grey and white, like a flint; with small 
twinkles in his eyes, as if something struck sparks out 
of them. The three natural kingdoms, indeed, had each 
a fanciful representative among this brotherhood of 
disputants: for Snitchey was like a magpie or a raven 
(only not so sleek), and the Doctor had a streaked face 
like a winter-pippin, with here and there a dimple to ex- 
press the peckings of the birds, and a very little bit of 
pigtail behind that stood for the stalk. 

As the active figure of a handsome young man, 
dressed for a journey, and followed by a porter bearing 
several packages and baskets, entered the orchard at a 
brisk pace, and with an air of gaiety and hope that ac- 
corded well with the morning, these three drew together, 
like the brothers of the sister Fates, or like the Graces 
most effectually disguised, or like the three weird pro- 
phets on the heath, and greeted him. 

" Happy returns, Alf!" said the Doctor, lightly. 

"A hundred happy returns of this auspicious day, 
Mr. Heathfield!" said Snitchey, bowing low. 

" Returns !" Craggs murmured in a deep voice, all 
alone. 

"Why, what a battery!" exclaimed Alfred, stopping 
short; "and one — two — three — all f oreboders of no good, 
in the great sea before me. I am glad you are not the 
first I have met this morning: I should have taken it for 
a bad omen. But Grace was the first — sweet, pleasant 
Grace— so I defy you all!" 

"If you please, mister, I was the first, you know," 
said Clemency Newcomb. "She was walking out here' 
before sunrise, you remember. I was in the house." 

"That's true!" Clemency was the first," said Alfred. 
" So I defy you with Clemency." 

"Ha, ha, "ha! — for Self and Craggs," said Snitchey. 
"What a defiance!" 

" Not so bad a one as it appears, may be," said Alfred, 
shaking hands heartily with the Doctor, and also with 
Snitchey and Craggs, and then looking around. " Where 
are the — Good Heavens!" 

"With a start, productive for a moment of a closer 
partnership between Jonathan Snitchey and Thomas 



252 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

Craggs than the subsisting articles of agreement in that 
wise contemplated, he hastily betook himself to where 
the sisters stood together, and — however, I needn't more 
particularly explain his manner of saluting Marion first, 
and Grace afterwards, than by hinting that Mr. Craggs 
may possibly have considered it "too easy." 

Perhaps, to change the subject, Doctor Jeddler made a 
hasty move toward the breakfast, and they all sat down 
at table. Grace presided, but so discreetly stationed 
herself as to cut off her sister and Alfred from the rest 
of the company. Snitchey and Craggs sat at opposite 
corners, with the blue bag between them for safety; the 
Doctor took his usual position, opposite to Grace. Clem- 
ency hovered galvanically about the table as waitress; 
and the melancholy Britain, at another and a smaller 
board, acted as Grand Carver of a round of beef and a 
ham. 

" Meat?" said Britain, approaching Mr. Snitchey, with 
the carving knife and fork in his hands, and throwing 
the question at him like a missile. 

" Certainly," returned the lawyer. 

" Do you want any?" to Craggs. 

" Lean and well done," replied that gentleman. 

Having executed these orders, and moderately sup- 
plied the Doctor (he seemed to know that nobody else 
wanted anything to eat), he lingered as near the firm as 
he decently could, watching with an austere eye their 
disposition of the viands, and but once relaxing the 
severe expression of his face. This was on the occasion 
of Mr. Craggs, whose teeth were not of the best, partially 
choking, when he cried out with great animation, "I 
thought he was gone!" 

"Now, Alfred," said the Doctor, "for a word or two 
of business, while we are yet at breakfast." 

"While we are yet at breakfast," said Snitchey and 
Craggs, who seemed to have no present idea of leaving 
off. 

Although Alfred had not been breakfasting, and 
seemed to have quite enough business on his hands as it 
was, he respectfully answered: 

"If you please, sir." 

"If anything could be serious," the Doctor began, 
" in such a — " 

"Farce as this, sir," hinted Alfred. 



THE BATTLrE OF LIFE. 253 



a 



In such a farce as this/' observed the Doctor; "it 
might be this recurrence, on the eve of separation, of a 
double birthday, which is connected with many associ- 
ations pleasant to us four, and with the recollection of 
a long and amicable intercourse. That's not to the pur- 
pose." 

"Ah! yes, yes, Dr. Jeddler," said the young man. 
" It is to the purpose— much to the purpose — as my heart 
bears witness this morning, and as yours does, too, I 
know, if you would let it speak. I leave your house to- 
day : I cease to be your ward to-day; we part with ten- 
der relations stretching far behind us, that never can be 
exactly renewed, and with others dawning yet before 
us," he looked down at Marion beside him, " fraught 
with such considerations as I must not trust myself to 
speak of now. Come, come!" he added, rallying his 
spirits and the Doctor at once, "there's a serious grain 
in this large foolish dust-heap, Doctor. Let us allow to- 
day that there is One." 

"To-day!" cried the Doctor. "Hear him! Ha, ha, 
ha! Of all days in the foolish year. Why, on this day 
the great battle was fought on this ground. On this 
ground where we now sit, where I saw my two girls 
dance this morning, where the fruit has just been 
gathered for our eating from these trees, the roots of 
which are stuck in Men, not earth, so many lives were 
lost, that within my recollection, generations afterwards, 
a churchyard full of bones, and dust of bones, and chips 
of cloven skulls, has been dug up from underneath our 
feet here. Yet not a hundred people in that battle knew 
for what they fought, or why; not a hundred of the in- 
considerate rejoicers in the victory, why they rejoiced. 
Not half a hundred people were the better for the gain 
or loss. Not half-a-dozen men agree to this hour on 
the cause or merits; and nobody, in short, ever knew 
anything distinct about it but the mourners of the 
slain. Serious, too !" said the Doctor, laughing. " Such 
a system!" 

"But all this seems to me," said Alfred, "to be very 
serious." 

"Serious!" cried the Doctor. "If you allowed such 
things to be serious, you must go mad, or die, or climb 
up to the top of the mountain and turn hermit." 
Besides — so long ago," said Alfred. 



a 



254 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

"Long ago!" returned the Doctor. "Do you know 
what the world has been doing, ever since? Do you 
know what else it has been doing? J don't!" 

"It has gone to law a little," observed Mr. Snitchey, 
stirring his tea. 

"Although the way out has been always made too 
easy," said his partner. 

" And you'll excuse my saying, Doctor," pursued Mr. 
Snitchey, "having been already put a thousand times 
in possession of my opinion, in the course of our dis- 
cussions, that, in its having gone to law, and in its legal 
system altogether, I do observe a serious side — now, 
really, a something tangible, and with a purpose and 
intention in it — " 

Clemency Newcome made an angular tumble against 
the table, occasioning a sounding clatter among the 
cups and saucers. 

"Heyday! what's the matter there?" exclaimed the 
Doctor. 

"It's this evil-inclined blue bag," said Clemency, 
"always tripping up somebody!" 

"With a purpose and intention in it, I was saying," 
resumed Snitchey, "that commands respect. Life a 
farce, Doctor Jeddler? With law in it?" 

The Doctor laughed and looked at Alfred. 

"Granted, if you please, that war is foolish," said 
Snitchey. "There we agree. For example. Here's a 
smiling country," pointing it out with his fork, "once 
overrun by soldiers — trespassers every man of 'em — and 
laid waste by fire and sword. He, he, he! The idea of 
any man exposing himself, voluntarily, to fire and 
sword! Stupid, wasteful, positively ridiculous; you 
laugh at your fellow-creatures, you know, when you 
think of it! But take this smiling country as it stands. 
Think of the laws appertaining to real property; to the 
bequest and devise of real property; to the mortgage 
and redemption of real property; to leasehold, freehold, 
and copyhold estate; think," said Mr. Snitchey, with 
such great emotion that he actually smacked his lips, 
"of the complicated laws relating to title and proof of 
title, with all the contradictory precedents and numerous 
acts of Parliament connected with them; think of the 
infinite number of ingenious and interminable Chancery 
suits, to which this pleasant prospect may give rise; 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 255 

and acknowledge, Doctor Jeddler, that there is a green 
spot in the scheme about us! I believe," said Mr. 
Snitchey, looking at his partner, "that I speak for Self 
and Craggs?" 

Mr. Craggs having signified assent, Mr. Snitchey, 
somewhat freshened by his recent eloquence, observed 
that he would take a little more beef and another cup 
of tea. 

"I don't stand up for life in general," he added, rub- 
bing his hands and chuckling, "it's full of folly; full of 
something worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, 
and unselfishness, and all that! Bah, bah, bah! We 
see what they're worth. But you mustn't laugh at life; 
you've got a game to play; a very serious game indeed! 
Everybody's playing against you, you know, and you're 
playing against them. Oh! it's a very interesting thing. 
There are deep moves upon the . board. You must only 
laugh, Doctor Jeddler, when you win — and then not 
much. He, he, he! And then not much," repeated 
Snitchey, rolling his head and winking his eye, as if he 
would have added, "you may do this instead!" 

"Well, Alfred!" cried the Doctor, "what do you say 
now?" ' 

" I say, sir," replied Alfred, " that the greatest favour 
you could do me, and yourself, too, I am inclined to 
think, would be to try sometimes to forget this battle- 
field, and others like it, in that broader battle-field of 
Life, on which the sun looks every day." 

" Really, I'm afraid that wouldn't soften his opinions, 
Mr. Alfred," said Snitchey. " The combatants are very 
eager and very bitter in that same battle of Life. 
There's a great deal of cutting and slashing, and 
firing into people's heads from behind. There is terri- 
ble treading down and trampling on. It is rather a 
bad business." 

"I believe, Mr. Snitchey," said Alfred, "there are 
quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, 
and noble acts of heroism, in it — even in many of its 
apparent lightnesses and contradictions — not the less 
difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chroni- 
cle or audience — done every day in nooks and corners, 
and in little households, and in men's and women's 
hearts — any one of which might reconcile the sternest 
man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope 



256 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

in it, though two-fourths of its people were at war, and 
another fourth at law; and that's a bold word." 

Both the sisters listened keenly. 

"Well, well!" said the Doctor, "I am too old to be 
converted, even by my friend Snitchey here, or my good 
spinster sister, Martha Jeddles; who had wliat she calls 
her domestic trials ages ago, and has led a sympathising 
life with all sorts of people ever since; and who is so 
much of your opinion (only she's less reasonable and 
more obstinate, being a woman), that we can't agree, 
and seldom meet. I was born upon this battle-field. I 
began, as a boy, to have my thoughts directed to the real 
history of a battle-field. Sixty years have gone over 
my head, and I have never seen the Christian world, 
including Heaven knows how many loving mothers and 
good enough girls like mine here, anything but mad for 
a battle-field. The same contradictions prevail in every- 
thing. One must either laugh or cry at such stupen- 
dous inconsistencies; and I prefer to laugh." 

Britain, who had been paying the profoundest and 
most melancholy attention to each speaker in his turn, 
seemed suddenly to decide in favour of the same prefer- 
ence, if a deep sepulchral sound that escaped him might 
be construed into a demonstration of risibility. His 
face, however, was so perfectly unaffected by it, both 
before and afterwards, that although one or two of the 
breakfast party looked round as being startled by a 
mysterious noise, nobody connected the offender with it. 

Except his partner in attendance, Clemency Newcome; 
who, rousing him with one of those favourite joints, 
her elbows, inquired, in a reproachful whisper, what he 
laughed at. 

" Not you!" said Britain. 

"Who, then?" 

" Humanity," said Britain, " That's the joke!" 

" What between master and them lawyers, he's get- 
ting more and more addle-headed every day!" cried 
Clemency, giving him a lunge with the other elbow, as 
a mental stimulant. "Do you know where you are? 
Do you want to get warning?" 

"I don't know anything," said Britain, with a leaden 
eye and an immovable visage. "I don't care for any- 
thing. I don't make out anything. I don't believe any- 
thing. And I don't want anything." 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 257 

Although this forlorn summary of his general condi- 
tion may have been overcharged in an excess of de- 
spondency, Benjamin Britain — sometimes called Little 
Britain, to distinguish him from Great; as we might say 
Young England, to express Old England with a decided 
difference — had defined his real state more accurately 
than might be supposed. For, serving as a sort of man 
Miles to the Doctor's Friar Bacon, and listening day 
after day to innumerable orations addressed by the 
Doctor to various people, all tending to show that his 
very existence was at best a mistake and an absurdity, 
this unfortunate servitor had fallen, by degrees, into 
such an abyss of confused and contradictory sugges- 
tions from within and from without, that Truth at the 
bottom of her well, was on the level surface as compared 
with Britain in the depths of his mystification. The 
only point he clearly comprehended, was, that the new 
element usually brought into these discussions by 
Snitchey and Craggs, never served to make them clearer, 
and always seemed to give the Doctor a species of ad- 
vantage and confirmation. Therefore, he looked upon 
the Firm as one of the proximate causes of his state of 
mind, and held them in abhorrence accordingly. 

" But this is not our business, Alfred," said the Doc- 
tor. " Ceasing to be my ward (as you have said) to- 
day; and leaving us full to the brim of such learning as 
the Grammar School down here was able to give you, 
and your studies in London could add to that, and such 
practical knowledge as a dull old country Doctor like 
myself could graft upon both; you are away, now, into 
the world. The first term of probation appointed by 
your poor father being over, away you go now, your 
own master, to fulfil his second desire. And long before 
your three years' tour among the foreign schools of 
medicine is finished, you'll have forgotten us. Lord, 
you'll forget us easily in six months!" 

" If I do — but you know better— why should I speak to 
you!" said Alfred, laughing. 

" I don't know anything of the sort," returned the 
Doctor. " What do you say, Marion?" 

Marion, trifling with her teacup, seemed to say— but 
she didn't say it — that he was welcome to forget them, 
if he could. Grace pressed the blooming face against 
her cheek, and smiled. 






258 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

" I haven't been, I hope, a very unjust steward in the 
execution of my trust/' pursued the Doctor; " but I am 
to be, at any rate, formally discharged, and released, 
and what not this morning; and here are our good 
friends Snitchey and Craggs, with a bagful of papers, 
and accounts, and documents, for the transfer of the 
balance of the trust fund to you (I wish it was a more 
difficult one to dispose of, Alfred, but you must get to be 
a great man, and make it so), and other drolleries of 
that sort, which are to be signed, sealed and delivered." 

"And duly witnessed as by law required," said 
Snitchey, pushing away his plate, and taking out the 
papers, which his partner proceeded to spread upon the 
table; "and Self and Craggs having being co-trustees 
with you, Doctor, in so far as the fund was concerned, 
we shall want your two servants to attest the signatures 
— can you read, Mrs. Newcome?" 

"I a'n't married, mister," said Clemency. 

"Oh, I beg your pardon. I should think not," 
chuckled Snitchey, casting his eyes over her extraor- 
dinary figure. " You can read?" 

"A little," answered Clemency. 

"The marriage service, night and morning, eh?" ob- 
served the lawyer, jocosely. 

"No," said Clemency. "Too hard. I only reads a 
thimble." 

" Read a thimble!" echoed Snitchey. " What are you 
talking about, young woman?" 

Clemency nodded. "And a nutmeg-grater." 

"Why, this is a lunatic! a subject for the Lord High 
Chancellor!" said Snitchey, staring at her. 

— " If possessed of any property," stipulated Craggs. 

Grace, however, interposing, explained that each of 
the articles in question bore an engraved motto, and so 
formed the pocket library of Clemency Newcome, who 
was not much given to study of books. 

" Oh, that's it, is it, Miss Grace!" said Snitchey. 

"Yes, yes. Ha, ha, ha! I thought our friend was an 
idiot. She looks uncommonly like it," he muttered, with 
a supercilious glance. "And what does the thimble 
say/Mrs. Newcome?" 

" I a'n't married, mister," observed Clemency. 

"Well, Newcome. Will that do?" said the lawyer. 
"What does the thimble say, Newcome?" 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 259 

How Clemency, before replying to this question, held 
one pocket open, and looked down into its yawning 
depths for the thimble which wasn't there — and how she 
then held an opposite pocket open, and seeming to 
descry it, like a pearl of great price, at the bottom, 
cleared away such intervening obstacles as a handker- 
chief, an end of wax candle, a flushed apple, an orange, 
a lucky penny, a cramp bone, a padlock, a pair of scis- 
sors in a sheath more expressly describable as promising 
young shears, a handful or so of loose beads, several 
balls of cotton, a needle-case, a cabinet collection of 
curl-papers, and a biscuit, all of which articles she en- 
trusted individually and severally to Britain to hold — is 
of no consequence. Nor how, in her determination to 
grasp this pocket by the throat and keep it prisoner (for 
it had a tendency to swing, and twist itself round the 
nearest corner), she assumed and calmly maintained an 
attitude apparently inconsistent with the human anat- 
omy and the laws of gravity. It is enough that at last 
she triumphantly produced the thimble on her finger, 
and rattled the nutmeg-grater: the literature of both 
these trinkets being obviously in course of wearing out 
and wasting away, through excessive friction. 

"That's the thimble, is it, young woman?" said Mr. 
Snitchey, diverting himself at her expense. "And what 
does the thimble say?" 

"It says," replied Clemency, reading slowly round as 
if it were a tower, " For-get and for-give." 

Snitchey and Craggs laughed heartily. "So new!" 
said Snitchey. "So easy!" said Craggs. "Such a 
knowledge of human nature in it!" said Snitchey. "So 
applicable to the affairs of life!" said Craggs. 

"And the nutmeg-grater?" inquired the head of the 
Firm. 

"The grater says," returned Clemency, "Do as you 
— would — be — done by." 

" Do, or you'll be done brown, you mean," said Mr. 
Snitchey. 

" I don't understand," retorted Clemency, shaking her 
head vaguely. "I a'n't no lawyer." 

" I am afraid that if she was, Doctor," said Mr. 
Snitchey, turning to him suddenlyf as if to anticipate 
any effect that might otherwise be consequent on this 
retort, " she'd find it to be the golden rule of half her 



260 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

clients. They are serious enough in that — whimsical as 
your world is — and lay the blame on us afterwards. 
We, in our profession, are little else than mirrors after 
all, Mr. Alfred; but we are generally consulted by angry 
and quarrelsome people who are not in their best looks, 
and its rather hard to quarrel with us if we reflect un- 
pleasant aspects. I think/' said Mr. Snitchey, " I speak 
for Self and Craggs?" 

" Decidedly," said Craggs. 

''And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouth- 
ful of ink," said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, 
"we'll sign, seal, and deliver as soon as possible, or the 
coach will be coming past before we know where we 
are." 

If one might judge from his appearance, there was 
every probability of the coach coming past before Mr. 
Britain knew where ^ was; for he stood in a state of 
abstraction, mentally balancing the Doctor against the 
lawyers, and the lawyers against the Doctor, and their 
clients against both, and engaged in feeble attempts to 
make the thimble and nutmeg-grater (a new idea to 
him) square with anybody's system of philosophy; and, 
in short, bewildering himself as much as ever his great 
namesake has done with theories and schools. But, 
Clemency, who was his good Genius — though he had the 
meanest possible opinion of her understanding, by rea- 
son of her seldom troubling herself with abstract specu- 
lations, and being always at hand to do the right thing 
at the right time — having produced the ink in a twink- 
ling, tendered him the further service of recalling him 
to himself by the application of her elbows; with which 
gentle flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more lit- 
eral construction of that phrase than usual, that he soon 
became quite fresh and brisk. 

How he laboured under an apprehension not uncom- 
mon to persons in his degree, to whom the use of pen 
and ink is an event, that he couldn't append his name 
to a document, not of his own writing, without commit- 
ting himself in some shadowy manner, or somehow 
signing away vague and enormous sums of money; and 
how he approached the deeds under protest, and by dint 
of the Doctor's coerfion, and insisted on pausing to look 
at them before writing (the cramped hand, to say noth- 
ing of the phraseology, being so much Chinese to him), 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 261 

and also on turning them round to see whether there 
was anything fraudulent underneath; and how, having 
signed his name, he became desolate as one who had 
parted with his property and rights; I want the time to 
tell. Also, how the blue bag containing his signature, 
afterwards had a mysterious interest for him, and he 
couldn't leave it; also, how Clemency Newcome, in an 
ecstasy of laughter at the idea of her own importance 
and dignity, brooded over the whole table with her two 
elbows, like a spread eagle, and reposed her head upon 
her left arm as a preliminary to the formation of certain 
cabalistic characters, which required a deal of ink, and 
imaginary counterparts whereof she executed at the 
same time with her tongue. Also, how, having once 
tasted ink, she became thirsty in that regard, as tame 
tigers are said to be after tasting another sort of fluid, 
and wanted to sign everything, and put her name in all 
kinds of places. In brief, the Doctor was discharged of 
his trust and all its responsibilities; and Alfred, taking 
it on himself, was fairly started on the journey of life. 

"Britain!" said the Doctor. "Bun to the gate, and 
watch for the coach. Time flies, Alfred!" 

"Yes, sir, yes," returned the young man, hurriedly. 
" Dear Grace! a moment! Marion — so young and beau- 
tiful, so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart 
as nothing else in life is — remember! I leave Marion to 
you!" 

" She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. 
She is doubly so, now. I will be faithful to my trust, 
believe me." 

"I do believe it, Grace. I know it well. Who could 
look upon your face, and hear your voice, and not know 
it! Ah, Grace! If I had your well-go verged heart, and 
tranquil mind, how bravely I would leave this place to- 
day!" 

"Would you?" she answered with a quiet smile. 

"And yet, Grace — Sister, seems the natural word." 

"Use it!" she said quickly. "I am glad to hear it. 
Call me nothing else." 

"And yet, sister, then," said Alfred, "Marion and I 
had better have your true and steadfast qualities serv- 
ing us here, and making us both happier and better. I 
wouldn't carry them away, to sustain myself, if I could!" 

"Coach upon the hill-top!" exclaimed Britain, 



262 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

" Time flies, Alfred," said the Doctor. 

Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the 
ground; but, this warning being given, her young lover 
brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave 
her into her embrace. 

"I have bee$ telling Grace, dear Marion," he said, 
" that you are her charge; my precious trust at parting. 
And when I come back and reclaim you, dearest, and 
the bright prospect of our married life lies stretched be- 
fore us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult 
how we can make Grace happy; how we can anticipate 
her wishes; how we can show our gratitude and love to 
her; how we can return her something of the debt she 
will have heaped upon us." 

The younger sister had one hand in his hand; the 
other rested on her sister's neck. She looked into that 
sister's eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, with a gaze 
in which affection, admiration, sorrow, wonder, almost 
veneration, were blended. She looked into that sister's 
face, as if it were the face of some bright angel. Calm, 
serene, and cheerful, the face looked back on her and on 
her lover. 

" And when the time comes, as it must one day," said 
Alfred — "I wonder it has never come yet, but Gtace 
knows best, for Grace is always right — when she will 
want a friend to open her whole heart to, and to be to 
her something of what she has been to us — then, Marion, 
how faithful we will prove, and what delight to us to 
know that she, our dear, good sister, loves and is loved 
again, as we would have her!" 

Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and 
turned not — even towards him. And still those honest 
eyes looked back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on her- 
self and on her lover. 

" And when all that is past, and we are old, and living 
(as we must!) together — close together — talking often of 
old times," said Alfred — "the&e shall be our favourite 
times among them — this day most of all; and, telling 
each other what we thought and felt, and hoped and 
feared at parting; and how we couldn't bear to say 
good-bye — " 

"Coach coming through the wood!" cried Britain. 

"Yes! I am ready — and how we met again, so hap- 
pily, in spite of all; we'll make this day the happiest in 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 263 

all the year, anc|, keep it as a treble birthday. Shall we, 
dear?" 

" Yes!" interposed the elder sister, eagerly, and with a 
radiant smile. "Yes! Alfred, don't linger. There's no 
time. Say good-bye to Marion. And Heaven be with 
you!" 

He pressed the younger sister to his heart. Released 
from his embrace, she again clung to her sister; and her 
eyes, with the same blended look, again sought those so 
calm, serene, and cheerful. 

" Farewell, my boy!" said the Doctor. " To talk about 
any serious correspondence or serious affections, and en- 
gagements and so forth, in such a — ha, ha, ha! — you 
know what I mean — why that, of course, would be sheer 
nonsense. All I can say is, that if you and Marion 
should continue in the same foolish minds, I shall not 
object to have you for a son-in-law one of these days." 

"Over the bridge!" cried Britain. 

"Let it come!" said Alfred, wringing the Doctor's 
hand stoutly. " Think of me sometimes, my old friend 
and guardian, as seriously as you can! Adieu, Mr. 
Snitchey! Farewell, Mr. Craggs!" 

"Coming down the road!" cried Britain. 

"A kiss of Clemency Newcome, for long acquaintance' 
sake! Shake hands, Britain! Marion, dearest heart, 
good-bye! Sister Grace! remember!" 

The quiet household figure, and the face so beautiful 
in its serenity, were turned towards him in reply; but 
Marion's look and attitude remained unchanged. 

The coach was at the gate. There was a bustle with 
the luggage. The coach drove away. Marion never 
moved. 

"He waves his hat to you, my love," said Grace. 
" Your chosen husband, darling. Look!" 

The younger sister raised her head, and, for a mo- 
ment, turned it. Then, turning back again, and fully 
meeting, for the first time, those calm eyes, fell sobbing 
on her neck. 

"Oh, Grace. God bless you! But I cannot bear to 
see it, Grace! It breaks my heart." 






264 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 



PART THE SECOND. 

Snitchey and Craggs had a snug little office on the 
old Battle Ground, where they drove a snug little busi- 
ness, and fought a great many small pitched battles for a 
great many contending parties. Though it could hardly 
be said of these conflicts that they were running fights 
— for in truth they generally proceeded at a snail's pace 
— the part the Firm had in them came so far within the 
general denomination, that now they took a shot at this 
Plaintiff, and now aimed a chop at that Defendant, now 
made a heavy charge at an estate in Chancery, and now 
had some light skirmishing am^ng an irregular body of 
small debtors, just as the occasion served, and the 
enemy happened to present himself. The Gazette was 
an important and profitable feature in some of their 
fields, as in fields of greater renown; and in most of the 
Actions wherein they showed their generalship, it was 
aftemvards observed" by the combatants that they had 
had great difficulty in making each other out, or in 
knowing with any degree of distinctness what they 
were about, in consequence of the vast amount of smoke 
by which they were surrounded. 

The offices of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs stood con- 
venient, with an open door down two smooth steps, in 
the market-place; so that any angry farmer, inclining 
towards hot water, might tumble into it at once. Their 
special council-chamber and hall of conference was an 
old back room up-stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which 
seemed to be knitting its brows gloomily in the con- 
sideration of tangled points of law. It was furnished 
with some high-backed leathern chairs, garnished with 
great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, every here and 
there, two or three had fallen out— or had been picked 
out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers 
of bewildered clients. There was a framed print 
of a great judge in it, every curl in whose dreadful wig 
had made a man's hair stand on end. Bales of papers 
filled the dusty closets, shelves and tables; and round 
the wainscot there were tiers of boxes, padlocked and 



THESpTTLE OF LIFE. 265 

fireproof, with people's names painted outside, which 
anxious visitors felt themselves, by a cruel enchant- 
ment, obliged to spell backwards and forwards, and to 
make anagrams of, while they sat, seeming to listen to 
Snitchey and Craggs, without comprehending one word 
of what they said. 

Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in 
professional existence, a partner of his own, Snitchey 
and Craggs were the best friends in the world, and had 
a real confidence in one another; but Mrs. Snitchey, by 
a dispensation not uncommon in the affairs ^©f life, was 
on principle suspicious of Mr. Craggs; and Mrs. Craggs 
was on principle suspicious of Mr. Snitchey. " Your 
Snitchey s, indeed," the latter lady would observe, some- 
times, to Mr. Craggs; using that imaginative plural as 
if in disparagement of an objectionable pair of pan- 
taloons, or other artid^g- not possessed of a singular 
number; "I don't see what you want with your 
Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal too 
much to your Snitcheys, I think, and I hope you may 
never find my words come true." While Mrs. Snitchey 
would observe to Mr. Snitchey, of Craggs, "that if ever 
he was led away by man he was led away by that man, 
and that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal 
eye, she read that purpose in Cragg's eye." Notwith- 
standing this, however, they were all very good friends 
in general, and Mrs. Snitchey and Mrs. Craggs main- 
tained a close bond of alliance against "the office," 
which they both considered the Blue Chamber, and 
common enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) 
machinations. 

In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made 
honey for their several hives. Here, sometimes, they 
would linger of a fine evening, at the window of their 
council-chamber, overlooking the old battle-ground, and 
wonder (but that was generally at assize time, when 
much business had made them sentimental) at the folly 
of mankind, who couldn't always be at peace with one 
another and go to law comfortably. Here, days, and 
weeks, and months, and years passed over them: their 
calendar, the gradually diminishing number of brass 
nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of 
papers on the tables. Here, nearly three years' flight 
had thinned the one and swelled the other, since the 



266 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

breakfast in the orchard; when they sat together in con- 
sultation at night. 

Not alone; but with a man of thirty, or about that 
time of life, negligently dressed, and somewhat hag- 
gard in the face, but well-made, well-attired, and well- 
looking; who sat in the arm-chair of state, with one 
hand in his breast, and the other in his dishevelled 
hair, pondering moodily. Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs 
sat opposite each other at a neighbouring desk. One of 
the fireproof boxes, unpadlocked and opened, was upon 
it; a part of its contents lay strewn upon the table, and 
the rest was then in course of passing through the 
hands of Mr. Snitchey; who brought it to the candle, 
document by document; looked at every paper singly, 
as he produced it; shook his head, and handed it to Mr. 
Craggs; who looked it over also, shook his head, and 
laid it down. Sometimes, they would stop, and shaking 
their heads in concert, look towards the abstracted 
client. And the name on the box being Michael 
Warden, Esquire, we may conclude from these prem- 
ises that the name and the box were both his, and that 
the affairs of Michael Warden, Esquire, were in a bad 
way. 

"That's all," said Mr. Snitchey, turning up the last 
paper. "Really there's no other resource. No other 
resource." 

"All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed and sold, 
eh?" said the client, looking up. 

"All," returned Mr. Snitchey. 

" Nothing else to be done, you say?" 

" Nothing at all." 

The client bit his nails, and pondered again. 

"And I am not even personally safe in England? You 
hold to that, do you?" 

" In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland," replied Mr. Snitchey. 

"A mere prodigal son, with no father to go back to, no 
swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh?" 
pursued the client, rocking one leg over the other, and 
searching the ground with his eyes. 

Mr. Snitchey coughed as if to deprecate the being sup- 
posed to participate in any figurative illustration of a 
legal position. Mr. Craggs, as if to express that it was 
a partnership view of the subject, also coughed. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 267 

" Ruined at thirty!" said the client. " Humph!" 

" Not ruined, Mr. Warden," returned Snitchey. "Not 
so bad as that. You have done a good deal towards 
it, I must say, but you are not ruined. A little nurs- 
ing"— 

" A little devil," said the client. 

"Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, "will you oblige me 
with a pinch of snuff ? Thank you, sir." 

As the imperturbable lawyer applied it to his nose, with 
great apparent relish and a perfect absorption of his at- 
tention in the proceeding, the client gradually broke 
into a smile, and, looking up, said: 

" You talk of nursing. How long nursing?" 

" How long nursing?" repeated Snitchey, dusting the 
snuff from his fingers, and making a slow calculation in 
his mind. " For your involved estate, sir? In good 
hands? S. and C.'s, say? Six or seven years." 

"To starve for six or seven years!" said the client 
with a fretful laugh, and an impatient change of his 
position. 

" To starve for six or seven years, Mr. Warden," said 
Snitchey, " would be very uncommon, indeed. You 
might get another estate by showing yourself, the 
while. But we don't think you could do it — speaking 
for Self and Craggs — and consequently don't advise it." 

"What do you advise?" 

"Nursing, I say," repeated Snitchey. "Some few 
years nursing by Self and Craggs would bring it round. 
But to enable us to make terms, and hold terms, and 
you to keep terms, you must go away; you must live 
abroad. As to starvation, we could insure you some 
hundreds a year to starve upon, even in the beginning — 
I dare say, Mr. Warden." 

"Hundreds," said the client. "And I have spent 
thousands!" 

"That," retorted Mr. Snitchey, putting the papers 
slowly back into the cast-iron box, "there is no doubt 
about. No doubt a — bout," he repeated to himself, as he 
thoughtfully pursued his occupation. 

The lawyer very likely knew his man; at any rate his 
dry, shrewd, whimsical manner, had a favourable influ- 
ence on the client's moody state, and disposed him to be 
more free and unreserved. Or, perhaps the client knew 
his man, and had elicited such encouragement as he 






268 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

had received, to render some purpose he was about to 
disclose the more* defensible in appearance. Grad- 
ually raising his head, he sat looking at his immov- 
able adviser with a smile, which presently broke into 
a laugh. 

" After all," he said, " my iron-headed friend — " 

Mr. Snitchey pointed out his partner. " Self and — ex- 
cuse me — Craggs." 

" I beg Mr. Craggs's pardon," said the client. " After 
all, my iron-headed friends," he leaned forward in his 
chair, and dropped his voice a little, " you don't know 
half my ruin yet." 

Mr. Snitchey stopped and stared at him. Mr. Craggs 
also stared. 

" I am not only deep in debt," said the client, "but I 
am deep in — " 

" Not in love!" cried Snitchey. 

"Yes!" said the client, falling back in his chair, and 
surveying the Firm with his hands in his pockets. 
"Deep in love." 

6 And not with an heiress, sir?" said Snitchey. 

" Not with an heiress." 

"Nor a rich lady?" 

" Nor a rich lady, that I know of — except in beauty and 
merit." 

" A single lady, I trust?" said Mr. Snitchey, with great 
expression. 

"Certainly." 

"It's not one of Doctor Jeddler's daughters?" said 
Snitchey, suddenly squaring his elbows on his knees, 
and advancing his face at least a yard. 

" Yes!" returned the client. 

"Not his younger daughter?" said Snitchey. 

" Yes!" returned the client. 

"Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, much relieved, "will 
you oblige me with another pinch of snuff? Thank you! 
I am happy to say it don't signify, Mr. Warden; she's 
engaged, sir; she's bespoke. My partner can corrobo- 
rate me. We know the fact." 

"We know the fact," repeated Craggs. 

"Why, so do I, perhaps," returned the client, quietly. 
"What of that! Are you men of the world, and did you 
never hear of a woman changing her mind?" 

" There certainly have been actions for breach," said 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 269 

Mr. Snitchey, "brought against both spinsters and 
widows, but, in the majority of cases — " 

"Cases!" interposed the client, impatiently. " Don't 
talk to me of cases. The general precedent is in a much 
larger volume than any of your law books. Besides, do 
you think I have lived six weeks in the Doctor's house 
for nothing?" 

" I think, sir," observed Mr. Snitchey, gravely address- 
ing himself to his partner, "that of all the scrapes Mr. 
Warden's horses have brought him into at one time and 
another— and they have been pretty numerous, and pretty 
expensive, as none know better than himself, and you, 
and I — the worst scrape may turn out to be, if he 
talks in this way, his having been ever left by one of 
them at the Doctor's garden wall, with three broken 
ribs, a snapped collar-bone, and the Lord knows how 
many bruises. We didn't think so much of it, at the time 
when we knew he was going on well under the Doctor's 
hands and roof; but it looks bad now, sir. Bad? It looks 
very bad. Doctor Jeddler, too — our client, Mr. Craggs." 

"Mr. Alfred Heathfield, too — a sort of client, Mr. 
Snitchey," said Craggs. 

"Mr. Michael Warden, too, a kind of client," said the 
careless visitor, "and no bad one either: having played 
the fool for ten or twelve years. However, Mr. Michael 
Warden has sown his wild oats now — there's their crop, 
in that box; and he means to repent and be wise. And 
in proof of it, Mr. Michael Warden means, if he can, to 
marry Marion, the Doctor's lovely daughter, and to 
carry her away with him." 

"Really, Mr. Craggs," Snitchey began. 

"Really, Mr. Snitchey and Mr. Craggs, partners, 
both," said the client, interrupting him; "you know 
your duty to your clients, and you know well enough, I 
am sure, that it is no part of it to interfere in a mere 
love affair, which I am obliged to confide to you. I am 
not going to carry the young lady off, without her own 
consent. There's nothing illegal in it. I never was Mr. 
Heathfield's bosom friend. I violate no confidence of 
his. . I love where he loves, and I mean to win where 
he would win, if I can." 

"He can't, Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, evidently anx- 
ious and discomfited. " He can't do it, sir. She dotes 
on Mr. Alfred." 



270 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

"Does she?" returned the client. 

" Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, sir," persisted Snitchey. 

" I didn't live six weeks, some few months ago, in the 
Doctor's house for nothing; and I doubted that soon," 
observed the client. "She would have doted on him, if 
her sister could have brought it about; but I watched 
them. Marion avoided his name, avoided the subject: 
shrunk from the least allusion to it, with evident dis- 
tress." 

"Why should she, Mr. Craggs, you know? Why 
should she, sir?" inquired Snitchey. 

"I don't know why she should, though there are many 
likely reasons," said the client, smiling at the attention 
and perplexity expressed in Mr. Snitchey's shining eye, 
and at his cautious way of carrying on the conversa- 
tion, and making himself informed upon the subject; 
"but I know she does. She was very young when she 
made the engagement — if it may be called one, I am not 
even sure of that — and has repented of it, perhaps. 
Perhaps — it seems a foppish thing to say, but upon my 
soul I don't mean it in that light — she may have fallen 
in love with me, as I have fallen in love with her." 

"He, he! Mr. Alfred, her old playfellow, too, you 
remember, Mr. Craggs," said Snitchey, with a discon- 
certed laugh; " knew her almost from a baby!" 

" Which makes it the more probable that she may be 
tired of his idea," calmly pursued the client, "and not 
indisposed to exchange it for the newer one of another 
lover, who presents himself (or is presented by his horse) 
under romantic circumstances; has the not unfavour- 
able reputation — with a country girl — of having lived 
thoughtlessly and gaily, without doing much harm to 
anybody; and who, for his youth and figure, and so 
forth — this may seem foppish again, but upon my soul 
I don't mean it in that light — might perhaps pass muster 
in a crowd with Mr. Alfred himself." 

There was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly; 
and Mr. Snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. There 
was something naturally graceful and pleasant in the 
very carelessness of his air. It seemed to suggest, of 
his comely face and well-knit figure, that they might 
be greatly better if he chose: and that once roused and 
made earnest (but he never had been earnest yet), he 
could be full of fire and purpose. " A dangerous sort of 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 271 

libertine," thought the shrewd lawyer, " to seem to catch 
the spark he wants from a young lady's eyes." 

"Now, observe, Snitchey," he continued, rising and 
taking him by the button, " and Craggs," taking him by 
the button also, and placing one partner on either side 
of him, so that neither might evade him. " I don't ask 
you for any advice. You are right to keep quite aloof 
from all parties in such a matter, which is not one in 
which grave men like you could interfere on any side. 
I am briefly going to review, in half-a-dozen words, my 
position and intentions, and then I shall leave it to you 
to do the best for me, in money matters, that you can: 
seeing that, if I run away with the Doctor's beautiful 
daughter (as I hope to do, and to become another man 
under her bright influence), it will be, for the moment, 
more chargeable than running away alone. But I shall 
soon make all that up in an altered life." 

"I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. 
Craggs?" said Snitchey, looking at him across the 
client. 

"J think not," said Craggs. Both listening attentively. 
Well! You needn't hear it," replied their client. 

I'll mention it, however. I don't mean to ask the 
Doctor's consent, because he wouldn't give it me. But 
I mean to do the Doctor no wrong or harm, because 
(besides there being nothing serious in such trifles, as he 
says) I hope to rescue his child, my Marion, from what 
I see — I knoiv — she dreads, and contemplates with mis- 
ery: that is, the return of this old lover. If anything 
in this world is true, it is true that she dreads his re- 
turn. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and 
worried here, just now, that I lead the life of a flying- 
fish. I skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my 
own house, and warned off my own grounds; but, that 
house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, 
will come back to me one day, as you know and say; 
and Marion will probably be richer — on your showing, 
who are never sanguine — ten years hence as my wife, 
than as the wife of Alfred Heathfield, whose return she 
dreads (remember that), and in whom or in any man, 
my passion is not surpassed. Who is injured yet? It 
is a fair case throughout. My right is as good as his, 
if she decide in my favour; and I will try my right by 
her alone. You will like to know no more after this, 






m THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

and I will tell you no more. Now you know my pur- 
pose, and wants. - When must I leave here?" 

"Ina week/' said Snitchey. " Mr. Craggs?" 

"In something less, I should say/' responded Craggs. 

" In a month," said the client, after attentively watch- 
ing the two faces. " This day month. To-day is Thurs- 
day, Succeed or fail, on this day month I go." 

"It's too long a delay," said Snitchey; "much too 
long. But let it be so. I thought he'd have stipulated 
for three," he murmured to himself. "Are you going? 
Good-night, sir!" 

"Good-night!" returned the client, shaking hands 
with the Firm. "You'll live to see me making a good 
use of riches yet. Henceforth the star of my destiny is, 
Marion!" 

" Take care of the stairs, sir," replied Snitchey; "for 
she don't shine there. Good-night!" 

"Good-night!" 

So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of 
office candles, watching him down. When he had gone 
away, they stood looking at each other. 

"What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs?" said 
Snitchey. 

Mr. Craggs shook his head. 

"It was our opinion, on the day when that release 
was executed, that there was something curious in the 
parting of that pair, I recollect," said Snitchey. 

"It was," said Mr. Craggs. 

"Perhaps he deceives himself altogether," pursued 
Mr. Snitchey, locking up the fireproof box, and putting 
it away; "or, if he don't, a little bit of fickleness and 
perfidy is not a miracle, Mr. Craggs. And yet I thought 
that pretty face was very true. I thought," said Mr. 
Snitchey, putting on his great-coat (for the weather was 
very cold), drawing on his gloves, and snuffing out one 
candle, "that I had even seen her character becoming 
stronger and more resolved of late. More like her 
sister's." 

"Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion," returned 
Craggs. 

"I'd really give a trifle to-night," observed Mr. 
Snitchey, who was a good-natured man, "if I could be- 
lieve that Mr. Warden was reckoning without his host; 
but, light-headed, capricious, and unballasted as he is, 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 273 

he knows something of the world and its people (he 
ought to, for he has bought what he does know, dear 
enough) ; and I can't quite think that. We had better not 
interfere: we can do nothing, Mr.Craggs,but keep quiet." 

" Nothing," returned Craggs. 

" Our friend, the Doctor, makes light of such things," 
said Mr. Snitchey, shaking his head. " I hope he 
mayn't stand in need of his philosophy. Our friend 
Alfred talks of the battle of life," he shook his head 
again; " I hope he mayn't be cut down early in the day. 
Have you got your hat, Mr. Craggs? I am going to put 
the other candle out." 

Mr. Craggs replying in the affirmative, Mr. Snitchey 
suited the action to the word, and they groped their 
way out of the council-chamber, now as dark as the 
subject, or the law in general. 

My story passes to a quiet little study, where, on that 
same night, the sisters and the hale old Doctor sat by a 
cheerful fireside. Grace was working at her needle. 
Marion read aloud from a book before her. The Doc- 
tor in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his feet spread 
out upon the warm rug, leaned back in his easy chair, 
and listened to the book, and looked upon his daughters. 

They were very beautiful to look upon. Two better 
faces for a fireside, never made a fireside bright and 
sacred. Something of the difference between them had 
been softened down in three years' time; and enthroned 
upon the clear brow of the younger sister, looking through 
her eyes, and thrilling in her voice, was the same 
earnest nature that her own motherless youth had 
ripened in the elder sister long ago. But she still ap- 
peared at once the lovelier and weaker of the two; still 
seemed to rest her head upon her sister's breast, and put 
her trusf in her, and look into her eyes for counsel and 
reliance. Those loving eyes, so calm, serene, and cheer- 
ful, as of old. 

" ' And being in her own home,' " read Marion, from 
the book; "'her home made exquisitely dear by these 
remembrances, she now began to know that the great 
trial of her heart must soon come on, and could not be 
delayed. Oh, Home, our comforter and friend when 
others fall away, to part with whom, at any step between 
the cradle and the grave' " — 

19 



274 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

" Marion, my love!" said Grace. 

"Why, Puss!" exclaimed her father, "what's the 
matter?" 

She put her hand upon the hand her sister stretched 
towards her, and read on; her voice still faltering and 
trembling, though she made an effort to command it when 
thus interrupted. 

" ' To part with whom, at any step between the cradle 
and the grave, is always sorrowful. Oh, home, so true 
to us, so often slighted in return, be lenient to them that 
turn away from thee, and do not haunt their erring foot- 
steps too reproachfully! Let no kind looks, no well-re- 
membered smiles, be seen upon thy phantom face. Let 
no ray of affection, welcome, gentleness, forbearance, 
cordiality, shine from thy white head. Let no old lov- 
ing word, or tone, rise up in judgment against thy de- 
serter; but if thou canst look harshly and severely, do, 
in mercy to the Penitent!'" 

" Dear Marion, read no more to-night," said Grace — 
for she was weeping. 

"I cannot," she replied, and closed the book. "The 
words seem all on fire!" 

The Doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he 
patted her on the head. 

"What! overcome by a story book!" said Doctor Jed- 
dler. " Print and paper! Well, well, it's all one. It's as 
rational to make a serious matter of print and paper as 
of anything else. But dry your eyes, love, dry your 
eyes. I dare say the heroine has got home again long 
ago, and made it up all round — and if she hasn't, a real 
home is only four walls; and a fictitious one, mere rags 
and ink. What's the matter now?" 

" It's only me, mister," said Clemency, putting in her 
head at the door. 

"And what's the matter with you?" said th# Doctor. 

" Oh, bless you, nothing ain't the matter with me," re- 
turned Clemency — and truly, too, to judge from her well- 
shaped face, in which there gleamed, as usual, the very 
soul of good-humour, which, ungainly as she was, made 
her quite engaging! Abrasions on the elbows are not 
generally understood, it is true, to range within that 
class of personal charms called beauty-spots. But, it is 
better, going through the world, to have the arms 
chafed in that narrow passage, than the temper: and 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 275 

Clemency's was sound, and whole as any beauty's in the 
land. 

"Nothing ain't the matter with me," said Clemency, 
entering, " but — come a little closer, mister." 

The Doctor, in some astonishment, complied with this 
invitation. 

"You said I wasn't to give you one before them, you 
know," said Clemency. 

A novice in the family might have supposed, from her 
extraordinary ogling as she said it, as well as from a 
singular rapture of ecstasy which pervaded her elbows, 
as if she were embracing herself , that " one," in its most 
favourable interpretation, meant a chaste salute. In- 
deed the Doctor himself seemed alarmed, for the mo- 
ment; but quickly regained his composure, as Clemency, 
having had recourse to both her pockets — beginning with 
the right one, going away to the wrong one, and after- 
wards coming back to the right one again — produced a 
letter from the Post-office. 

"Britain was riding by on an errand," she chuckled, 
handing it to the Doctor; "and see the mail come in. 
and waited for it. There's A. H. in the corner. Mr. 
Alfred's on his journey home, I bet. We shall have 
a wedding in the house — there was two spoons in 
my saucer this morning. Oh, Luck, how slow he 
opens it!" 

All this she delivered, by way of soliloquy, gradu- 
ally rising higher and higher on tiptoe, in her 
impatience to hear the news, and making a corkscrew 
of her apron, and a bottle of her mouth. At last, 
arriving at a climax of suspense, and seeing the Doctor 
still engaged in the perusal of the letter, she came down 
flat upon the soles of her feet again, and cast her apron, 
as a veil, over her head, in a mute despair, and inability 
to bear it any longer. 

"Here! Girls!" cried the Doctor. "I can't help it: I 
never could keep a secret in my life. There are not 
many secrets, indeed, worth being kept in such a — well! 
never mind that. Alfred's coming home, my dears, 
directly." 

"Directly!" exclaimed Marion. 

"What! The story book is soon forgotten!" said the 
Doctor, pinching her cheek. "I thought the news 
would dry those tears. Yes. ' Let it be a surprise,' he 



276 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

says, here. But I can't let it be a surprise. He must 
have a welcome." 

"Directly!" repeated Marion. 

"Why, perhaps, not what your impatience calls 
' directly,' returned the Doctor; "but pretty soon too. 
Let us see, Let us see. To-day is Thursday, is it not? 
Then he promises to be here, this day month." 

"This day month!" repeated Marion, softly. 

"A gay day and a holiday for us," said the cheerful 
voice of her sister Grace, kissing her in congratulation. 
"Long looked forward to, dearest, and come at last." 

She answered with a smile; a mournful smile, but 
full of sisterly affection. As she looked in her sister's 
face, and listened to the quiet music of her voice, pic- 
turing the happiness of this return, her own face glowed 
with hope and joy. 

And with a something else; a something shining more 
and more through all the rest of its expression; for 
which I have no name. It was not exultation, triumph, 
proud enthusiasm. They are not so calmly shown. It 
was not love and gratitude alone, though love and grati- 
tude were part of it. It emanated from no sordid 
thought, for sordid thoughts do not light up the brow, 
and hover on the lips, and move the spirit like a flut- 
tered light, until the sympathetic figure trembles. 

Doctor Jeddler, in spite of his system of philosophy — 
which he was continually contradicting and denying in 
practice, but more famous philosophers have done that 
— could not help having as much interest in the return 
of his old ward and pupil, as if it had been a serious event. 
So, he sat himself down in his easy chair again, 
stretched out his slippered feet once more upon the rug, 
read the letter over and over a great many times, and 
talked it over more times still. 

"Ah! The day was," said the Doctor, looking at 
the fire, "when you and he, Grace, used to trot about 
arm-in-arm, in his holiday time, like a couple of walk- 
ing dolls. You remember?" 

" I remember," she answered, with her pleasant laugh, 
and plying her needle busily. 

" This day month, indeed!" mused the Doctor. " That 
hardly seems a twelvemonth ago. And where was 
my little Marion then!" 

"Never far from her sister," said Marion, cheerily, 






THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 277 

" however little. Grace was everything to me, even 
when she was a young child herself." 

" True, Puss, true," returned the Doctor. She was a 
staid little woman, was Grace, and a wise housekeeper, 
and a busy, quiet, pleasant body; bearing with our 
humours, and anticipating our wishes, and always 
ready to forget her own, even in those times. I never 
knew you positive or obstinate, Grace, my darling, even 
then, on any subject but one." 

" I am afraid I have changed sadly for the worse, 
since," laughed Grace, still busy at her work. " What 
was that one, father?" 

''Alfred, of course," said the Doctor. "Nothing 
would serve you but you must be called Alfred's wife; 
so we called you Alfred's wife; and you liked it better, 
I believe (odd as it seems now), than being called a 
Duchess, if we could have made you one." 

" Indeed?" said Grace, placidly. 

"Why, don't you remember?" inquired the Doctor. 

"I think I remember something of it," she returned, 
"but not much. It's so long ago." And as she sat at 
work, she hummed the burden of an old song, which the 
Doctor liked. 

" Alfred will find a real wife soon," she said, breaking 
off; " and that will be a happy time indeed for all of us. 
My three years' trust is nearly at an end, Marion. It 
has been a very easy one. I shall tell Alfred, when I 
give you back to him, that you have loved him dearly 
all the time, and that he has never once needed my 
good services. May I tell him so, love?" 

"Tell him, dear Grace," replied Marion, "that there 
never was a trust so generously, nobly, steadfastly dis- 
charged; and that I have loved you, all the time, dearer 
and dearer every day; and oh! how dearly now!" 

"Nay," said her cheerful sister, returning her embrace, 
"I can scarcely tell him that; we will leave my deserts 
to Alfred's imagination. It will be liberal enough, dear 
Marion; like your own." 

With that she resumed the work she had for a 
moment laid down, when her sister spoke so fervently: 
and with it the old song the Doctor liked to hear. And 
the Doctor, still reposing in his easy chair, with his 
slippered feet stretched out before him on the rug, 
listened to the tune, and beat time on his knee with 






278 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

Alfred's letter, and looked at his two daughters, and 
thought that among the many trifles of the trifling 
world, these trifles were agreeable enough. 

Clemency Newcome, in the meantime, having accom- 
plished her mission and lingered in the room until she 
had made herself a party to the news, descended to the 
kitchen, where her coadjutor, Mr. Britain, was regaling 
after supper, surrounded by such a plentiful collection 
of bright pot-lids, well-scoured saucepans, burnished 
dinner covers, gleaming kettles, and other tokens of her 
industrious habits, arranged upon the walls and shelves, 
that he sat as in the centre of a hall of mirrors. The 
majority did not give forth very flattering portraits of 
him, certainly; nor were they by any means unanimous 
in their reflections; as some made him very long-faced, 
others very broad-faced, some tolerably well-looking, 
others vastly ill-looking, according to their several 
manners of reflecting: which were as various, in respect 
of one fact, as those of so many kinds of men. But 
they all agreed that in the midst of them sat, quite at 
his ease, an individual w^ith a pipe in his mouth, and a 
jug of beer at his elbow, who nodded condescendingly 
to Clemency, when she stationed herself at the. same 
table. 

"Well, Clemmy," said Britain, "how are you by this 
time, and what's the news?" 

Clemency told him the news, which he received very 
graciously. A gracious change had come over Benjamin 
from head to foot. He was much broader, much redder, 
much more cheerful, and much jollier in all respects. 
It seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot 
before, and was now untwisted and smoothed out. 

"There'll be another job for Snitchey and Craggs, I 
suppose," he observed, puffing slowly at his pipe. "More 
witnessing for you and me, perhaps, Clemmy!" 

"Lor!" replied his fair companion, with her favourite 
twist of her favourite joints. "I wish it was me, 
Britain!" 

"Wish what was you?" 

"A going to be married," said Clemency. 

Benjamin took his pipe out of his mouth and laughed 
heartily. "Yes! you're a likely subject for that!" he 
said. "Poor Clem!" Clemency for her part laughed 
as heartily as he, and seemed as much amused by the 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 279 

idea. "Yes," she assented, "I'm a likely subject for 
that; an't I?" 

;i You'll never be married, you know," said Mr. 
Britain, resuming his pipe. 

" Don't you think I ever shall, though?" said Clemency, 
in perfect good faith. 

Mr. Britain shook his head. "Not a chance of it!" 

"Only think!" said Clemency. "Well! — I suppose 
you mean to, Britain, one of these days; don't you?" 

A question so abrupt, upon a subject so momentous, 
required consideration. After blowing out a great cloud 
of smoke, and looking at it with his head now on this 
side and now on that, as if it were actually the ques- 
tion, and he were surveying it in various aspects, Mr. 
Britain replied that he wasn't altogether clear about 
it, but — ye-es — he thought he might come to that at 
last. 

" I wish her joy, whoever she may be!" cried Clemency. 

" Oh, she'll have that," said Benjamin, " safe enough." 

" But she wouldn't have led quite such a joyful life as 
she will lead, and wouldn't have had quite such a 
sociable sort of husband as she will have," said Clem- 
ency, spreading herself half over the table, and staring 
retrospectively at the candle, " if it hadn't been for — not 
that I went to do it, for it was accidental, I am sure — if 
it hadn't been for me; now, would she, Britain?" 

" Certainly not," returned Mr. Britain, by this time in 
that high state of appreciation of his pipe, when a man 
can open his mouth but a very little way for speaking 
purposes; and sitting luxuriously immovable in his 
chair, can afford to turn only his eyes towards a com- 
panion, and that very passively and gravely. "Oh! I'm 
greatly beholden to you, you know, Clem." 

" Lor, how nice that is to think of!" said Clemency. 
a At the same time bringing her thoughts as well as her 
sight to bear upon the candle grease, and becoming ab- 
ruptly reminiscent of its healing qualities as a balsam, 
she anointed her left elbow with a plentiful application 
of that remedy. 

"You see I've made a good many investigations of 
one sort and another in my time," pursued Mr. Britain, 
with the profundity of a sage; "having been always of 
an ^Hiring turn of mind; and I've read a good many 
\ ^out the general Rights of things and Wrongs of 



280 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

things, for I went into the literary line myself when I 
began life." 

" Did you, though!" cried the admiring Clemency. 

"Yes," said Mr. Britain: " I was hid for the best part 
of two years behind a bookstall, ready to fly out if any- 
body pocketed a volume; and after that, I was light por- 
ter to a stay and mantuamaker, in which capacity I 
was employed to carry about, in oilskin baskets, nothing 
but deceptions — which soured my spirits and disturbed 
my confidence inhuman nature; and after that, I heard 
a world of discussions in this house, which soured my 
spirits fresh; and my opinion after all is, that, as a safe 
and comfortable sweetener of the same, and as a pleasant 
guide through life, there's nothing like a nutmeg-grater. " 

Clemency was about to offer a suggestion, but he 
stopped her by anticipating it. 

"Com-bined," he added gravely, "with a thimble." 

" Do as you wold, you know, and cetrer, eh!" observed 
Clemency, folding her arms comfortably in her delight 
at this avowal, and patting her elbows. " Such a short 
cut, an't it?" 

"I'm not sure," said Mr. Britain, "that it's what 
would be considered good philosophy. I've my doubts 
about that; but it were as well, and saves a quantity of 
snarling, which the genuine article don't always." 

" See how you used to go on once, yourself, you 
know!" said Clemency. 

"Ah!" said Mr. Britain. " But the most extraordinary 
thing, Clemmy, is that I should live to be brought round, 
through you. That's the strange part of it. Through 
you! Why, I suppose you haven't so much as half an 
idea in your head." 

Clemency, without taking the least offence, shook it, 
and laughed, and hugged herself, and said, "No, she 
didn't suppose she had." 

"I'm pretty sure of it," said Mr. Britain. 

"Oh! I dare say you're right," said Clemency. "I 
don't pretend to none. I don't want any." 

Benjamin took his pipe from his lips, and laughed till 
the tears ran down his face. " What a natural you are, 
Clemmy!" he said, shaking his head, with an infinite 
relish of the joke, and wiping his eyes. Clemency, with- 
out the smallest inclination to dispute it, did th r e, 
and laughed as heartily as he. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 281 

"I can't help liking you," said Mr. Britain; "you're a 
regular good creature in your way, so shake hands, Clem. 
Whatever happens, Fll always take notice of you, and 
be a friend to you." 

" Will you?" returned Clemency. " Well! that's very 
good of you." 

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Britain, giving her his pipe to 
knock the ashes out of it; "Fll stand by you. Hark! 
That's a curious noise!" 

"Noise!" repeated Clemency. 

"A footstep outside. Somebody dropping from the 
wall, it sounded like," said Britain. "Are they all abed 
up-stairs ?" 

" Yes, all abed by this time," she replied. 

" Didn't vou hear anything?" 

"No." 

They both listened, but heard nothing. 

" I tell you what," said Benjamin, taking down a 
lantern, " Fll have a look round, before I go to bed my- 
self, for satisfaction's sake. Undo the door while I 
light this, Clemmy." 

Clemency complied briskly, but observed as she did 
so, that he would only have his walk for his pains, that 
it was all his fancy, and so forth. Mr. Britain said 
"very likely;" but sallied out, nevertheless, armed with 
the poker, and casting the light of the lantern far and 
near in all directions. 

"It's as quiet as a churchyard," said Clemency, look- 
ing after him; " and almost as ghostly, too!" 

Glancing back into the kitchen, she cried fearfully, as 
a light figure stole into her view, " What's that!" 

"Hush!" said Marion, in an agitated whisper. "You 
have always loved me, have you not?" 

" Loved you, child! You may be sure I have." 

" I am sure. And I may trust you, may I not? There 
is no one else just now, in whom I can trust." 

"Yes," said Clemency, with all her heart. 

"There is some one out there," pointing to the door, 
' whom I i^iust see, and speak with to-night. Michael 
Warden, for God's sake retire! Not now!" 

Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, follow- 
ing the direction of the speaker's eyes, she saw a dark 
figure standing in the doorway. 

" In another moment you may be discovered," said 






282 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

Marion. "Not now! Wait, if you can, in some con- 
cealment. I will come presently." 

He waved his hand to her, and was gone. 

"Don't go to bed. Wait here for me!" said Marion, 
hurriedly. " I have been seeking to speak to you for an 
hour past. Oh, be true to me!" 

Eagerly seizing her bewildered hand, and pressing it 
with both her own to her breast — an action more ex- 
pressive, in its passion of entreaty, than the most elo- 
quent appeal in words — Marion withdrew; as the light 
of the returning lantern flashed into the room. 

"All still and peaceable. Nobody there. Fancy, I 
suppose," said Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the 
door. " One of the effects of having a lively imagina- 
tion. Halloa! Why, what's the matter?" 

Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her 
surprise and concern, was sitting in a chair, pale, and 
trembling from head to foot. 

"Matter!" she repeated, chafing her hands and 
elbows, nervously, and looking anywhere but at him. 
"That's good in you, Britain, that is! After going 
and frightening one out of one's life with noises, 
and lanterns, and I don't know what all. Matter! 
Oh, yes!" 

"If you're frightened out of your life by a lantern, 
Clemmy," said Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out 
and hanging it up again, "that apparition's very soon 
got rid of. But you're as bold as brass in general," lie 
said, stopping to observe her; " and were, after the noise 
and lantern too. What have you taken into your head? 
Not an idea, eh?" 

But, as Clemency bade him good-night, very much 
after her usual fashion, and began to bustle about with a 
show of going to bed herself immediately, Little Britain, 
after giving utterance to the original remark that 
it was impossible to account for a woman's whims, bade 
her good-night in return, and taking up his candle, 
strolled drowsily away to bed. 

When all was quiet, Marion returned. 

" Open the door," she said; " and stand there close be- 
side me, while I speak to him, outside." 

Timid as her manner was, it still evinced a resolute 
and settled purpose, such as Clemency could not resist. 
She softly unbarred tlie door: but before turning the 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 283 

key, looked round on the young creature waiting to 
issue forth when she should open it. 

The face was not averted or cast down, but looking 
full upon her, in its pride of youth and beauty. Some 
simple sense of the slightness of the barrier that inter- 
posed itself between the ha.ppy home and honoured love 
of the fair girl, and what might be the desolation of that 
home, and shipwreck of its dearest treasure, smote so 
keenly on the tender heart of Clemency, and so filled 
it to overflowing with sorrow and compassion, that, 
bursting into tears, she threw her arms round Marion's 
neck. 

"It's little that I know, my dear," cried Clemency, 
" very little; but I know that this should not be. Think 
of what you do!" 

"I have thought of it many times," said Marion, 
gently. 

"Once more," urged Clemency. "Till to-morrow." 
Marion shook her head. 

"For Mr. Alfred's sake," said Clemency, with homely 
earnestness. "Him that you used to love so dearly, 
once!" 

She hid her face, upon the instant, in her hands, re- 
peating "Once!" as if it rent her heart. 

" Let me go out," said Clemencj^, soothing her. " I'll 
tell him what you like. Don't cross the door-step to- 
night. I'm sure no good will come of it. Oh, it was an 
unhappy day when Mr. Warden was ever brought here! 
Think of your good father, darling — of your sister." 

" I have," said Marion, hastily raising her head. 
"You don't know what I do. You don't know what I do. 
I must speak to him. You are the best and truest friend 
in all the world for what you have said to me, but I 
must take this step. Will you go with me, Clemency," 
she kissed her on her friendly face, " or shall I go 
alone?" 

Sorrowing and wondering, Clemency turned the key, 
and opened the door. Into the dark and doubtful night 
that lay beyond the threshold, Marion passed quickly, 
holding by her hand. 

In the dark night he joined her, and they spoke to- 
gether earnestly and long; and the hand that held so 
fast by Clemency's, now trembled, now turned deadly 
cold, now clasped and closed on hers, in the strong feel- 



284 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

ing of the speech it emphasised unconsciously. When 
they returned, he followed to the door, and pausing 
there a moment, seized the other hand, and pressed it to 
his lips. Then stealthily withdrew. 

The door was barred and locked again, and once 
again she stood beneath her father's roof. Not bowed 
down by the secret that she brought there, though so 
young; but with that same expression on her face for 
which I had no name before, and shining through her 
tears. 

Again she thanked and thanked her humble friend, 
and trusted to her, as she said, with confidence, im- 
plicitly. Her chamber safely reached, she fell upon her 
knees; and with her secret weighing on her heart, could 
pray! 

Could rise up from her prayers so tranquil and serene, 
and bending over her fond sister in her slumber, look 
upon her face and smile — though sadly: murmuring as 
she kissed her forehead, how that Grace had been a 
mother to her, ever, and she loved her as a child! 

Could draw the passive arm about her neck when 
lying down to rest — it seemed to cling there, of its own 
will, protectingly and tenderly even in sleep — and 
breathe upon the parted lips, God bless her! 

Could sink into a peaceful sleep, herself; but for one 
dream, in which she cried out in her innocent and 
touching voice, that she was quite alone, and they had 
all forgotten her. 

A month soon passes, even at its tardiest pace. The 
month appointed to elapse between that night and the 
return, was quick of foot, and went by like a vapour. 

The day arrived. A raging winter day, that shook 
the old house, sometimes, as if it shivered in the blast. 
A day to make home doubly home. To give the 
chimney-corner new delights. To shed a ruddier glow 
upon the faces gathered round, the hearth, and draw 
each fireside group into a closer and more social league, 
against the roaring elements without. Such a wild 
winter day as best prepares the way for shut-out night; 
for curtained rooms, and cheerful looks; for music, 
laughter, dancing, light, and jovial entertainment! 

All these the Doctor had in store to welcome Alfred 
back. They knew that he could not arrive till night; 









THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 285 

and they would make the night air ring, he said, as he 
approached. All his old friends should congregate about 
him. He should not miss a face that he had known 
and liked. No! They should every one be there! 

So, guests were bidden, and musicians were engaged, 
and tables spread, and floors prepared for active feet, 
and bountiful provision made of every hospitable kind. 
Because it was the Christmas season, and his eyes were 
all unused to English holly and its sturdy green, the 
dancing-room was garlanded and hung with it; and 
the red berries gleamed an English welcome to him, 
peeping from among the leaves. 

It was a busy day for all of them: a busier day for 
none of them than Grace, who noiselessly presided 
everywhere, and was the cheerful mind of all the prepa- 
rations. Many a time that day (as well as many a time 
within the fleeting month preceding it), did Clemency 
glance anxiously, and almost fearfully, at Marion. She 
saw her paler, perhaps, than usual; but there was a 
sweet composure on her face that made it lovelier than 
ever. 

At night when she was dressed, and wore upon her 
head a wreath that Grace had proudly twined about it — 
its mimic flowers were Alfred's favourites, as Grace 
remembered when she chose them — that old expression, 
pensive, almost sorrowful, and yet so spiritual, high, 
and stirring, sat again upon her brow, enhanced a 
hundredfold. 

' ' The next wreath I adjust on this fair head, will be 
a marriage wreath," said Grace; "or I am no true pro- 
phet, dear." 

Her sister smiled, and held her in her arms. 

"A moment, Grace. Don't leave me yet. Are you 
sure that I want nothing more?" 

Her care was not for that. It was her sister's face 
she thought of, and her eyes were fixed upon it tenderly. 

"My art," said Grace, " can go no farther, dear girl; 
nor your beauty. I never saw you look so beautiful as 
now." 

" I never was so happy," she returned. 

"Ay, but there is a greater happiness in store. In 
such another home, as cheerful and as bright as this 
looks now," said Grace, "Alfred and his young wife 
will soon be living." 



286 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

She smiled again. "It is a happy home, Grace, in 
your fancy. I can see it in your eyes. I know it will 
be happy, dear. How glad I am to know it." 

"Well," cried the Doctor, bustling in. "Here we 
are, all ready for Alfred, eh? He can't be here until 
pretty late — an hour or so before midnight — so there'll 
be plenty of time for making merry before he comes. 
He'll not find us with the ice unbroken. Pile up the 
fire here, Britain! Let it shine upon the holly till it 
winks again. It's a world of nonsense, Puss; true lovers 
and all the rest of it — all nonsense; but we'll be non- 
sensical with the rest of 'em and give our true lover a 
mad welcome. Upon my word!" said the old Doctor, 
looking at his daughters proudly, " I'm not clear to- 
night, among other absurdities, but that I'm the father 
of two handsome girls." 

" All that one of them has ever done, or may do — may 
do, dearest father — to cause you pain or grief, forgive 
her," said Marion, "forgive her now, when her heart is 
full. Say that you forgive her. That you will forgive 
her. That she shall always share your love, and — " 
and the rest was not said, for her face was hidden on 
the old man's shoulder. 

"Tut, tut, tut," said the Doctor, gently. "Forgive! 
What have I to forgive? Heydey, if our true lovers 
come back to flurry us like this, we must hold them at 
a distance; we must send expresses out to stop 'em short 
upon the road, and bring 'em on a mile or two a day, 
until we're properly prepared to meet 'em. Kiss me, 
Puss. Forgive! Why, what a silly child you are. If 
you had vexed and crossed me fifty times a day, instead 
of not at all, I'd forgive you everything, but such a sup- 
plication. Kiss me again, Puss. There ! Prospective 
and retrospective — a clear score between us. Pile up the 
fire here! Would you freeze the people on this bleak 
December night! Let us be light, and warm, and merry, 
or I'll not forgive some of you!" 

So gaily the old Doctor carried it! And the fire was 
piled up, and the lights were bright, and company ar- 
rived, and a murmuring of lively tongues began, and 
already there was a pleasant air of cheerful excitement 
stirring through all the house. 

More and more company came flocking in. Bright 
eyes sparkled upon Marion; smiling lips gave her joy of 






THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 287 

his return; sage mothers fanned themselves, and hoped 
she mightn't be too youthful and inconstant for the 
quiet round of home; impetuous fathers fell into dis- 
grace, for too much exaltation of her beauty; daughters 
envied her; sons envied him; innumerable pairs of lovers 
profited by the occasion; all were interested, animated, 
and expectant. 

Mr. and Mrs. Craggs came arm-in-arm, but Mrs. 
Snitchey came alone. "Why, what's become of him?" 
inquired the Doctor. 

The feather of a Bird of Paradise in Mrs. Snitchey's 
turban trembled as if the Bird of Paradise were alive 
again, when she said that doubtless Mr. Craggs knew. 
She was never told. 

"That nasty office," said Mrs. Craggs. 

"I wish it was burned down," said Mrs. Snitchey. 

" He's — he's — there's a little matter of business that 
keeps my partner rather late," said Mr. Craggs, looking 
uneasily about him. 

"Oh — h! Business. Don't tell me!" said Mrs. Snitchey. 

" We know what business means," said Mrs. Craggs. 

But their not knowing what it meant, was perhaps 
the reason why Mrs. Snitchey's Bird of Paradise feather 
quivered so portentously, and why all the pendant bits 
on Mrs. Craggs's ear-rings shook like little bells. 

"I wonder you could come away, Mr. Craggs," said 
his wife. 

"Mr. Craggs is fortunate, I'm sure!" said Mrs. 
Snitchey. 

" That office so engrosses 'em!" said Mrs. Craggs. 

"A person with an office has no business to be mar- 
ried at all," said Mrs. Snitchey. 

"Then, Mrs. Snitchey said, within herself, that that 
look of hers had pierced to Craggs's soul, and he knew 
it; and Mrs. Craggs observed to Craggs, that "his 
Snitcheys " were deceiving him behind his baek, and he 
would find it out when it was too late. 

Still, Mr. Craggs, without much heeding these re- 
marks, looked uneasily about him until his eye rested 
on Grace, to whom he immediately presented himself. 

"Good-evening, ma'am," said Craggs. "You look 
charmingly. Your — Miss — your sister, Miss Marion, is 
she—" 

" Oh, she's quite well, Mr. Craggs." 



288 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

" Yes — I — is she here?" asked Craggs. 

" Here! Don't you see her yonder? Going to dance?" 
said Grace. 

Mr. Craggs put on his spectacles to see the better; 
looked at her through them for some time; coughed; and 
put them, with an air of satisfaction, in their sheath 
again, and in his pocket. 

Now the music struck up, and the dance commenced. 
The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as 
though it joined the dance itself, in right good-fellow- 
ship. Sometimes it roared as if it would make music, 
too., Sometimes it flashed and beamed as if it were the 
eye of the old room: it winked, too, sometimes, like a 
knowing Patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in 
corners. Sometimes it sported with the holly -boughs; 
and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them 
look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and 
fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its genial humour 
grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it 
cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a 
loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its 
exultation leaped and bounded like a mad thing, up the 
broad old chimney. 

Another dance was near its close, when Mr. Snitchey 
touched his partner, who was looking on, upon the arm. 

Mr. Craggs started, as if his familiar had been a 
spectre. 

" Is he gone?" he asked. 

"Hush! He has been with me," said Snitchey, "for 
three hours and more. He went over everything. He 
looked into all our arrangements for him, and was very 
particular indeed. He— Humph!" 

The dance was finished. Marion passed close before 
him, as he spoke. She did not observe him, or his part- 
ner; but looked over her shoulder towards her sister in 
the distance, as she slowly made her way into the 
crowd, and passed out of their view. 

"You see! All safe and well," said Mr. Craggs. " He 
didn't recur to that subject, I suppose?" 

"Not a word." 

" And is he really gone? Is he safe away?" 

"He keeps to his word. He drops down the river 
with the tide in that shell of a boat of his, and so goes 
out to sea on this dark night! — a dare-devil he is — before 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 289 

the wind. There's no such lonely road anywhere else. 
That's one thing. The tide flows, he says, an hour be- 
fore midnight — about this time. I'm glad it's over. 
Mr. Snitchey wiped his forehead, which looked hot and 
anxious. 

"What do you think," said Mr. Craggs, "about — " 

"Hush!" replied his cautious partner, looking straight 
before him ; " I understand you. Don't mention names, 
and don't let us seem to be talking secrets. I don't know 
what V> think; and, to tell you the truth, I don't care, 
now. It's a great relief. His self-love deceived him, I 
suppose. Perhaps the young lady coquetted a little. 
The evidence would seem to point that way. Alfred not 
arr/ved?" 

u Not yet," said Mr. Craggs. "Expected every minute." 

"Good." Mr. Snitchey wiped his forehead again. 
''It's a great relief. I haven't been so nervous since 
we've been in partnership. I intend to spend the even- 
ing now, Mr. Craggs." 

Mrs. Craggs and Mrs. Snitchey joined them as he an- 
nounced this intention. The Bird of Paradise was in a 
state of extreme vibration, and the little bells were 
ringing quite audibly. 

"It has been the theme of general comment, Mr. 
Snitchey," said Mrs. Snitchey. "I hope the office is sat- 
isfied." 

"Satisfied with what, my dear?" asked Mr. Snitchey. 

"With the exposure of a defenceless woman to ridi- 
cule and remark," returned his wife. " That is quite in 
the way of the office, that is." 

"I really, myself," said Mrs. Craggs, "have been so 
long accustomed to connect the office with everything 
opposed to domesticity, that I am glad to know it as the 
avowed enemy of my peace. There is something honest 
in that, at all events." . 

" My dear," urged Mr. Craggs, " your good opinion is 
invaluable, but I never avowed that the office was the 
enemy of your peace." 

" No," said Mrs. Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon 
the little bells. "Not you, indeed. You wouldn't be 
worthy of the office, if you had the candour to." 

"As to my having been away to-night, my dear," said 
Mr. Snitchey, giving her his arm, "the deprivation has 
been mine, I'm sure; but, as Mr. Craggs knows-—" 
20 



290 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

Mrs. Snitchey cut this reference very short by hitch- 
ing her husband to a distance, and asking him to look at 
that man. To do her the favour to look at him! 

"At which man, my dear?" said Mr. Snitchey. 

" Your chosen companion; J'm no companion to you, 
Mr. Snitchey." 

" Yes, yes, you are, my dear," he interposed. 

" No, no, I'm not," said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic 
smile. "I know my station. Will you look at your 
chosen companion, Mr. Snitchey; at your referee, at the 
keeper of your secrets, at the man you trust; at your 
other self, in short. " 

The habitual association of Self with Craggs, occa- 
sioned Mr. Snitchey to look in that direction. 

" If you can look that man in the eye this night," said 
Mrs. Snitchey, "and not know that you are deluded, 
practised upon, made the victim of his arts, and bent 
down prostrate to his will by some unaccountable fas- 
cination which it is impossible to explain and against 
which no warning of mine is of the least avail, all I can 
say is — I pity you!" 

At the very same moment Mrs. Craggs was oracular 
on the cross subject. Was it possible, she said, that 
Craggs could so blind himself to his Snitcheys, as not 
to feel his true position. Did he mean to say that he had 
seen his Snitcheys come into that room, and didn't 
plainly see that there was reservation, cunning, treach- 
ery, in the man? Would he tell her that his very action, 
when he wiped his forehead and looked so stealthily 
about him, didn't show that there was something 
weighing on the conscience of his precious Snitcheys (if 
he had a conscience), that wouldn't bear the light? Did 
anybody but his Snitcheys come to festive entertain- 
ments like a burglar? which, by the way, was hardly a 
clear illustration of the case, as he had walked in very 
mildly at the door. And would he still assert to her at 
noonday (it being nearly midnight), that his Snitcheys 
were to be justified through thick and thin, against all 
facts, and reason, and experience? 

Neither Snitchey nor Craggs openly attempted to stem 
the current which had thus set in, but both were content 
to be carried gently along it, until its force abated. 
This happened at about the same time as a general 
movement for a country dance; when Mr. Snitchey pro- 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 291 

posed himself as a partner to Mrs. Craggs, and Mr. 
Craggs gallantly offered himself to Mrs. Snitchey; and 
after some such slight evasions as " why don't you ask 
somebody else?" and "you'll be glad, I know, if I de- 
cline," and " I wonder you can dance out of the office" 
(but this jocosely now), each lady graciously accepted, 
and took her place. 

It was an old custom among them, indeed, to do so, 
and to pair off, in like manner, at dinners and suppers; 
for they were excellent friends, and on a footing of easy 
familiarity. Perhaps the false Craggs and the wicked 
Snitchey was a recognised fiction with the two wives, as 
Doe and Roe. incessantly running up and down baili- 
wicks, were with the two husbands; or, perhaps the ladies 
had instituted, and taken upon themselves, these two 
shares in the business, rather than be left out of it alto- 
gether. But, certain it is, that each wife went as 
gravely and steadily to work in her vocation as her hus- 
band did in his, and would have considered it almost 
impossible for the Firm to maintain a successful and 
respectable existence without her laudable exertions. 

But, now, the Bird of Paradise was seen to flutter 
down the middle; and the little bells began to bounce 
and jingle in poussette; and the Doctor's rosy face spun 
round and round, like an expressive pegtop highly var- 
nished; and breathless Mr. Craggs began to doubt 
already, whether country dancing had been made "too 
easy," like the rest of life; and Mr. Snitchey, with his 
nimble cuts and capers, footed it for Self, and Craggs, 
and half-a-dozen more. 

Now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favoured by the 
lively wind the dance awakened, and burned clear and 
high. It was the Genius of the room, and present 
everywhere. It shone in people's eyes, it sparkled in 
the jewels on the snowy necks of girls, it twinkled at 
their ears as if it whispered to them slyly, it flashed 
about their waists, it flickered on the ground and made 
it rosy for their feet, it bloomed upon the ceiling that its 
glow might set off their bright faces, and it kindled up 
a general illumination in Mrs. Craggs's little belfry. 

Now, too, the lively air that fanned it, grew less gentle 
as the music quickened and the dance proceeded with 
new spirit; and a breeze arose that made the leaves and 
berries dance upon the wall, as they had often done 



292 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

upon the trees; and the breeze rustled in the room as 
if an invisible company of fairies, treading in the foot- 
steps of the good substantial revellers, were whirling 
after them. JSTow, too, no feature of the Doctor's face 
could be distinguished as he spun and spun; and now 
there seemed a dozen Birds of Paradise in fitful flight; 
and now there were a thousand little bells at work; 
and now a fleet of flying skirts was ruffled by a little 
tempest, when the music gave in, and the dance was over. 

Hot and breathless as the Doctor was, it only made 
him the more impatient for Alfred's coming. 

"Anything been seen, Britain? Anything been 
heard?" 

"Too dark to see far, sir. Too much noise inside the 
house to hear." 

"That's right! The gayer welcome for him. How 
goes the time?" 

"Just twelve, sir. He can't be long, sir." 

"Stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it," said 
the Doctor. "Let him see his welcome blazing out 
upon the night — good boy! — as he comes along!" 

He saw it — Yes! From the chaise he caught the light, 
as he turned the corner by the old church. He knew 
the room from which it shone. He saw the wintry 
branches of the old trees between the light and him. 
He knew that one of those trees rustled musically in 
the summer time at the window of Marion's chamber. 

The tears were in his eyes. His heart throbbed so 
violently that he could hardly bear his happiness. How 
often he had thought of this time — pictured it under all 
circumstances — feared that it might never come — 
yearned, and wearied for it — far away! 

Again the light! Distinct and ruddy; kindled, he 
knew, to give him welcome, and to speed him home. 
He beckoned with his hand, and waved his hat, and 
cheered out, loud, as if the light were they, and they 
could see and hear him, as he dashed towards them 
through the mud and mire, triumphantly. 

Stop! He knew the Doctor, and understood what he 
had done. He would not let it be a surprise to them. 
But he could make it one, yet, by going forward on 
foot. If the orchard gate were open, he could enter 
there; if not, the wall was easily climbed, as he knew 
of old; and he would be among them in an instant. 



THE BATTLE OP LIFE. 293 

He dismounted from the chaise, and telling the driver 
— even that was not easy in his agitation — to remain 
behind for a few minutes, and then to follow slowly, 
ran on with exceeding swiftness, tried the gat Jed 

the wall, jumped down on the other side, and stood 
panting in the old orchard. 

There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the 
faint light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller 
branches like dead garlands. Withered leaves crackled 
and snapped beneath his feet, as he crept softly on 
towards the house. The desolation of a winter night 
sat brooding on the earth, and in the sky. But the 
red light came cheerily towards him from the windo\ 
figures passed and repassed there; and the hum and 
murmur of voices greeted his ear, sweetly. 

Listening for hers: attempting, as he crept on, to 
detach it from the rest, and half-believing that he heard 
it: he had nearly reached the door, when it was abruptly 
opened, and a figure coming out encountered his. It 
instantly recoiled with a half-suppressed cry. 

"Clemency," he said, "don't you know me?" 

"Don't come in!" she answered, pushing him back. 
"Go away. Don't ask me why. Don't come in." 



" I don't know. I — I am afraid to think. Go back. 
Hark!" 

There was a sudden tumult in the house. She put 
her hands upon her ears. A wild scream, such as no 
hands could shut out, was heard; and Grace — distrac- 
tion in her looks and manner — rushed out at the door. 

"Grace!" He caught her in his arms. "What is 
it! Is she dead!" 

She disengaged herself , as if to recognise his face, and 
fell down at his feet. 

A crowd of figures came about them from the house. 
Among them was her father, with a paper in his hand. 

" What is it!" cried Alfred, grasping his hair with his 
hands, and looked in an agony from face to face, as 
he bent upon his knee beside the insensible girl. " Will 
no one look at me? Will no one speak to me? Does 
no one know me? Is there no voice among you all, to 
tell me what it is!" 

There was a murmur among them. " She is gone." 

"Gone!" he echoed. 



294 THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

" Fled, my dear Alfred!" Said the Doctor, in a broken 
voice, and with his hands before his face. " Gone from 
her home and us. To-night! She writes that she has 
made her innocent and blameless choice — entreats that 
vill forgive her — prays that we will not forget her — 
and is gone." 

< ' With whom ? Where ?" 

He started up, as if to follow in pursuit; but, when 
y gave way to let him pass, looked wildly round upon 
T;hem, staggered back, and sank down in his former at- 
titude, clasping one of Grace's cold hands in his own. 

There was a hurried running to and fro, confusion, 
noise, disorder, and no purpose. Some proceeded to 
erse themselves about the roads, and some took 
horse, and some got lights, and some conversed together, 
urging that there was no trace or track to follow. Some 
approached him kindly, with the view of offering con- 
solation; some admonished him that Grace must be re- 
moved into the house, and that he prevented it. He 
never heard them, and he never moved. 

The snow fell fast and thick. He looked up for a mo- 
ment in the air, and thought that those white ashes strewn 
upon his hopes and misery, were suited to them well. He 
looked round on the whitening ground, and thought 
how Marion's footprints would be hushed and covered 
up, as soon as made, and even that remembrance of her 
blotted out. But he never felt the weather, and he never 
stirred. 



PART THE THIRD. 

The world had grown six years older since that night 
of the return. It was a warm autumn afternoon, and 
there had been heavy rain. The sun burst suddenly 
from among the clouds; and the old battle-ground, spark- 
ling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green 
place, flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread 
along the country side as if a joyful beacon had been 
lighted up, and answered from a thousand stations. 

How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, 
and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial 
presence brightening everything! The wood, a sombre 
mass before, revea^d its varied tints of yellow, green, 









THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 295 



brown, red: its different forms of trees, with raindrops 
glittering on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. 
The verdant meadow-land bright and glowing, seemed 
as if it had been blind, a minute since, and now had 
found a sense of sight wherewith to look up at the 
shining sky.- Cornfields, hedge-rows, fences, home- 
steads, the clustered roofs, the steeple of the church, the 
stream, the water-mill, all sprang out of the gloomy 
darkness, smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised 
their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigo- 
rated ground; the blue expanse above, extended and 
diffused itself: already the sun's slanting rays pierced 
mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its 
flight; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colours that 
adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with 
its triumphant glo^. 

At such a time, one little roadside Inn, snugly sheltered 
behind a great elm tree with a rare seat for idlers encir- 
cling its capacious bole, addressed a cheerful front to- 
wards the traveller, as a house of entertainment ought, 
and tempted him with many mute but significant assur- 
ances of a comfortable welcome. The ruddy sign-board 
perched up in the tree, with its golden letters winking 
in the sun, ogled the passer-by, from among the green 
leaves , like a jolly face, and promised good cheer. The 
horse trough, full of clear, fresh water, and the ground 
below it sprinkled with droppings of fragrant hay, made 
every horse that passed prick up his ears. The crimson 
curtains in the lower rooms, and the pure white hangings 
in the little bed-chambers above beckoned, Come in! with 
every breath of air. Upon the bright green shutters, there 
were golden legends about beer and ale, and neat wines, 
and good beds; and an affecting picture of a brown jug 
frothing over at the top. Upon the window-sills were 
flowering plants in bright red pots, which made a lively 
show against the white front of the house; and in the 
darkness of the doorway there were streaks of light, 
which glanced off from the surface of bottles and 
tankards. 

On the door-step appeared a proper figure of a land- 
lord, too; for, though he was a short man, he was round 
and broad, and stood with his hands in his pockets, and 
his legs just wide enough apart to express a mind at 
rest upon the subject of the cellar, and an easy confi- 






296 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

dence — too calm and virtuous to become a swagger — in 
the general resources of the Inn. The superabundant 
moisture trickling from everything after the late rain, 
set him off well. Nothing near him was thirsty. Cer- 
tain top-heavy dahlias, looking over the palings of his 
neat, well-ordered garden, had swilled as much as they 
could carry — perhaps a trifle more — and may have been 
the worse for liquor; but, the sweet-briar, roses, wall- 
flowers, the plants at the windows, and the leaves on 
the old tree, were in the beaming state of moderate com- 
pany that had taken no more than was wholesome for 
them, and had served to develop their best qualities. 
Sprinkling dewy drops about them on the ground, they 
seemed profuse of innocent and sparkling mirth, that 
did good where it lighted, softening neglected corners 
which the steady rain could seldom reach, and hurting 
nothing. 

This village Inn had assumed, on being established, 
an uncommon sign. It was called the Nutmeg Grater. 
And underneath that household word, was inscribed, up 
in the tree, on the- same flaming board, and in the like 
golden characters, By Benjamin Britain. 

At a second glance, and on a more minute examina- 
tion of his face, you might have known that it was no 
other than Benjamin Britain himself who stood in the 
doorway — reasonably changed by time, but for the bet- 
ter; a very comfortable host indeed. 

"Mrs. B.," said Mr. Britain, looking down the road, 
"is rather late. It's tea time." 

As there was no Mrs. Britain coming, he strolled leis- 
urely out into the road and looked up at the house, very 
much to his satisfaction. " It's just the sort of house," 
said Benjamin, "I should wish to stop at, if I didn't 
keep it." 

Then he strolled towards the garden paling, and took 
a look at the dahlias. They looked over at him, with a 
helpless, drowsy hanging of their heads: which bobbed 
again, as the heavy drops of wet dripped off them. 

" You must be looked after," said Benjamin. " Mem- 
orandum, not to forget to tell her so. She's a long time 
coming." 

Mr. Britain's better half seemed to be by so very much 
his better half, that his own moiety of himself was ut- 
terly cast away and helpless without her. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 297 

" She hadn't much to do, I think/' said Ben. " There 
were a few little matters of business after market, but 
not many. Oh! here we are at last!" 

A chaise cart, driven by a boy, came clattering along 
the road: and seated in it, in a chair, with a large well- 
saturated umbrella, spread out to dry behind her, was 
the plump figure of a matronly woman, with her bare 
arms folded across a basket which she carried on her 
knee, several other baskets and parcels lying crowded 
about her, and a certain bright good-nature in her face 
and contented awkwardness in her manner, as she 
jogged to and fro with the motion of her carriage, which 
smacked of old times, even in the distance. Upon her 
nearer approach, this relish of bygone days was not 
diminished; and when the car stopped at the Nutmeg 
Grater door, a pair of shoes, alighting from it, slipped 
nimbly through Mr. Britain's open arms, and came down 
with a substantial weight upon the pathway, which 
shoes could hardly have belonged to any one but Clem- 
ency Newcome. 

In fact they did belong to her, and she stood in them, 
and a rosy comfortable-looking soul she was: with as 
much soap on her glossy face as in times of yore, but 
with whole elbows now, that had grown quite dimpled 
in her improved condition. 

"You're late, Clemmy! said Mr. Britain. 

"Why, you see, Ben, I've had a deal to do!" she re- 
plied, looking busily after the safe removal into the 
house of all the packages and baskets; "eight, nine, ten 
— where's eleven? Oh! my basket's eleven! It's all 
right. Put the horse up, Harry, and if he coughs again 
give him a warm mash to-night. Eight, nine, ten. Why, 
where's eleven? Oh, I forgot, it's all right. How's the 
children, Ben?' 

"Hearty, Clemmy, hearty." 

" Bless their precious faces!" said Mrs. Britain, unbon- 
neting her own round countenance (for she and her 
husband were by this time in the bar), and smoothing 
her hair with her open hands. " Give us a kiss, old 
man!" 

Mr. Britain promptly complied. 

"I think," said Mrs. Britain, applying herself to her 
pockets and drawing forth an immense bulk of thin books 
and crumpled papers: a very kennel of dog's ears: "I've 



298 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

done everything. Bills all settled — turnips sold — brewer's 
account looked into and paid — 'bacco pipes ordered — 
seventeen pound four paid into the Bank — Doctor 
Heathfield's charge for little Clem — you'll guess what 
that is — Doctor Heathfield won't take nothing again, 
Tim." 

" I thought he wouldn't/' returned Britain. 

" No. He says whatever family you was to have, Tim, 
he'd never put you to the cost of a halfpenny. Not if 
you was to have twenty." 

Mr. Britain's face assumed a serious expression, and 
looked hard at the wall. 

" A'nt it kind of him?" said Clemency. 

" Very," returned Mr. Britain. " It's the sort of 
kindness that I wouldn't presume upon on any account." 

"No," retorted Clemency. "Of course not. Then 
there's the pony — he fetched eight pound two, and that 
a'nt bad, is it?" 

"It's very good," said Ben. 

"I'm glad you're pleased!" exclaimed his wife. "I 
thought you would be; and I think that's all, and so 
no more at present from yours and cetrer, C. Britain. 
Ha, ha, ha! There! Take all the papers, and lock 'em 
up. Oh! Wait a minute. Here's a printed bill to 
stick on the wall. Wet from the printer's. How nice 
it smells!" 

" What's this?" said Tim, looking over the document. 

"I don't know," replied his wife. "I haven't read a 
word of it." 

" ' To be sold by Auction,' " read the host of the Nut- 
meg Grater, " 'unless previously disposed of by private 
contract.'" 

" They always put that," said Clemency. 

"Yes, but they don't always put this," he returned. 
"Look here, 'Mansion,' &c. — ' offices,' &c, 'shrubber- 
ies,' &c, 'ring fence,' &c, 'Messrs. Snitchey and 
Craggs,' &c, ' ornamental portion of the unincumbered 
freehold property of Michael Warden, Esquire, intend- 
ing to continue to reside abroad ' !" 

"Intending to continue to reside abroad!" repeated 
Clemency. 

" Here it is," said Mr. Britain. " Look!" 

" And it was only this very day that I heard it whis- 
pered at the old house, that better and plainer news had 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 299 

been half-promised of her, soon!" said Clemency, shaking 
her head sorrowfully, and patting her elbows as if the 
recollection of old times unconsciously awakened her old 
habits. "Dear, dear, dear! There'll be heavy hearts, 
Ben, yonder." 

Mr. Britain heaved a sigh, and shook his head, and 
said he couldn't make it out: he had left off trying long 
ago. With that remark, he applied himself to putting 
up the bill just inside the bar window. Clemency, after 
meditating in silence for a few moments, roused herself, 
cleared her thoughtful brow, and bustled off to look 
after the children. 

Though the host of the Nutmeg Grater had a lively 
regard for his good wife, it was of the old patronising 
kind, and she amused him mightily. Nothing would 
have astonished him so much, as to have known for 
certain fi:om any third party, that it was she who man- 
aged the whole house, and made him, by her plain, 
straightforward thrift, good-humour, honesty, and in- 
dustry, a thriving man. So easy it is, in any degree of 
life (as the world very often finds it), to take those 
cheerful natures that never assert their merit, at their 
own modest valuation; and to conceive a flippant liking 
of people for their outward oddities and eccentricities, 
whose innate worth, if we would look so far, might 
make us blush in the comparrison! 

It was comfortable to Mr. Britain to think of his own 
condescension in having married Clemency. She was 
a perpetual testimony to him of the goodness of his 
heart, and the kindness of his disposition; and he felt 
tha,t her being an excellent wife was an illustration of 
the old precept that virtue is its own reward. 

He had finished wafering up the bill, and had locked 
the vouchers for her day's proceedings in the cupboard 
— chuckling all the time over her capacity for busi- 
ness — when, returning with the news that the two Mas- 
ter Britains were playing in the coach-house under the 
superintendence of one Betsey, and that little Clem was 
sleeping "like a picture," she sat down to tea, which 
had awaited her arrival on a little table. It was a very 
neat little bar, with the usual display of bottles and 
glasses; a sedate clock, right to the minute (it was half- 
past five); everything in its place, and everything fur- 
bished and polished up to the very utmost. 



300 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

" It's the first time I've sat down quietly to-day, I de- 
clare/' said Mrs. Britain, taking a long breath, as if she 
had sat down for the night; but getting up again imme- 
diately to hand her husband his tea, and cut him his 
bread and butter; "how that bill does set me to think- 
ing of old times!" 

"Ah!" said Mr. Britain, handling his saucer like an 
oyster, and disposing of its contents on the same principle. 

"That same Mr. Michael Warden," said Clemency, 
shaking her head at the notice of sale, " lost me my old 
place." 

" And got you your husband," said Mr. Britain. 

"Well! So he did," retorted Clemency, "and many 
thanks to him." 

"Man's the creature of habit," said Mr. Britain, sur- 
veying her, over his saucer. "I had somehow got 
used to you, Clem; and I found I shouldn't be able to 
get on without you. So we went and got made man and 
wife. Ha! ha! We! Who'd have thought it!" 

"Who, indeed!" cried Clemency. " It was very good 
of you, Ben." 

" No, no, no," replied Mr. Britain, with an air of self- 
denial. " Nothing worth mentioning." 

" Oh, yes it was, Ben," said his wife, with great sim- 
plicity; " I'm sure I think so, and am very much obliged 
to you. Ah!" looking again at the bill; " when she was 
known to be gone, and out of reach, dear girl, I couldn't 
help telling — for her sake quite as much as theirs — what 
I knew, could I?" 

"You told it, anyhow," observed her husband. 

"And Doctor Jeddler," pursued Clemency, putting 
down her teacup, andlooking thoughtfully at the bill, 
" in his grief and passion, turned me out of house and 
home! I never have been so glad of anything in all my 
life as that I didn't say an angry word to him, and 
hadn't an angry feeling towards him, even then; for he 
repented that truly, afterwards. How often he has sat 
in this room, and told me over and over again he was 
sorry for it! — the last time only yesterday, when you 
were out. How often he has sat in this room, and 
talked to me, hour after hour, about one thing and an- 
other, in which he made believe to be interested! — but 
only for the sake of the days that are gone by, and be- 
cause he knows she used to like me, Ben!" 






THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 301 

" Why, how did you ever come to catch a glimpse of 
that, Clem?" asked her husband, astonished that she 
should have a distinct perception of a truth which had 
only dimly suggested itself to his inquiring mind. 

" I don't know, I'm sure," said Clemency, blowing her 
tea to cool it. " Bless me, I couldn't tell you, if you was 
to offer me a reward of a hundred pound." 

He might have pursued this metaphysical subject but 
for her catching a glimpse of a substantial fact behind 
him, in the shape of a gentleman attired in mourning, 
and cloaked and booted like a rider on horseback, who 
stood at the bar door. He seemed attentive to their 
conversation, and not at all impatient to interrupt it. 

Clemency hastily rose at this sight. Mr. Britain also 
rose and saluted the guest. "Will you please to walk 
up-stairs, sir. There's a very nice room up-stairs, sir. " 

" Thank j^ou," said the stranger, looking earnestly at 
Mr. Britain's wife. " May I come in here?" 

"Oh, surely, if you like, sir," returned Clemency, ad- 
mitting him. " What would you please to want, sir?" 

The bill had caught his eye, and he was reading it. 

"Excellent property that, sir," observed Mr. Britain. 

He made no answer, but turning round, when he had 
finished reading, looked at Clemency with the same ob- 
servant curiosity as before. "You were asking me" — 
he said, still looking at her — 

" What you would please to take, sir," answered Clem- 
ency, stealing a glance at him in return. 

"If you will let me have a draught of ale," he said, 
moving to a table by the window, " and will let me have 
it here, without being any interruption to your meal, I 
shall be much obliged to you." 

He sat down as he spoke without any further parley, 
and looked out at the prospect. He was an easy, well- 
knit figure of a man in the prime of life. His face, much 
browned by the sun, was shaded by a quantity of dark 
hair; and he wore a moustache. His beer being set before 
him, he filled out a glass, and drank, good-humouredly, 
to the house; adding, as he put the tumbler down again: 

"It's a new house, is it not?" 

"Not particularly new, sir," replied Mr. Britain. 

"Between five and six years old," said Clemency, 
speaking very distinctly. 

" I think I heard you mention Doctor Jeddler's name 




302 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

as I came in," inquired the stranger. " That bill reminds 
me of him; for I happen to know something of that 
story, by hearsay, and through certain connections of 
mine. Is the old man living?" 

"Yes, he's living, sir/ 7 said Clemency. 

"Much changed?" 

"Since when, sir?" returned Clemency, with remark- 
able emphasis and expression. 

"Since his daughter — went away." 

"Yes! he's greatly changed since then," said Clem- 
ency. "He's grey and old, and hasn't the same way 
with him at all; but I think he's happy now. He has 
taken on with his sister since then, and goes to see her 
very often. That did him good, directly. At first, he 
was sadly broken down; and it was enough to make 
one's heart bleed to see him wandering about, railing at 
the world; but a great change for the better came over 
him after a year or two, and then he began to like to 
talk about his lost daughter, and to praise her, ay, and 
the world, too ! and was never tired of saying, with the 
tears in his poor eyes, how beautiful and good she was. 
He had forgiven her then. That was about the same 
time as Miss Grace's marriage. Britain, you remember?" 

Mr. Britain remembered very well. 

" The sister is married, then," returned the stranger. 
He paused for some time before he asked, " To whom?" 
Clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board, 
in her emotion at this question. 

" Did you never hear?" she said. 

"I should like to hear," he replied, as he filled his 
glass again, and raised it to his lips. 

"Ah! It would be a long story, if it was properly 
told," said Clemency, resting her chin on the palm of her 
left hand, and supporting that elbow on her right hand, 
as she shook her head, and looked back through the 
intervening years, as if she were looking at a fire. " It 
would be a long story, I am sure.". 

" But told as a short one," suggested the stranger. 

"Told as a short one," repeated Clemency in the same 
thoughtful tone, and without any apparent reference to 
him, or consciousness of having auditors, "what would 
there be to tell? That they grieved together, and remem- 
bered her together, like a person dead; that they were 
so tender of her, never would reproach her, called her 






THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 303 

back to one another as she used to be, and found excuses 
for her! Every one knows that. I'm sure I do. No one 
better," added Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand. 

"And so," suggested the stranger. 

"And so," said Clemency, taking him up mechani- 
cally, and without any change in her attitude or man- 
ner, " they at last were married. They were married on 
her birthday — it comes round again to-morrow — very 
quiet, very humble like, but very happy. Mr. Alfred 
said, one night when they were walking in the orchard, 
'Grace, shall our wedding-day be Marion's birthday?' 
And it was." 

"And they have lived happily together?" said the 
stranger. 

" Ay," said Clemency. " No two people ever more so. 
They have had no sorrow but this." 

She raised her head as with a sudden attention to the 
circumstances under which she was recalling these 
events, and looked quickly at the stranger. Seeing that 
his face was turned towards the window, and that he 
seemed intent upon the prospect, she made some eager 
signs to her husband, and pointed to the bill, and moved 
her mouth as if she were repeating with great energy, 
one word or phrase to him over and over again. As she 
uttered no sound, and as her dumb motions, like most of 
her gestures, were of a very extraordinary kind, this un- 
intelligible conduct reduced Mr. Britain to the confines 
of despair. He stared at the table, at the stranger, at 
the spoons, at his wife — followed her pantomime with 
looks of deep amazement and perplexity — asked in the 
same language, was it property in danger, was it he in 
danger, was it she — answered her signals with other 
signals expressive of the deepest distress and confusion 
— followed the motions of her lips — guessed half aloud 
" milk and water," " monthly warning," " mice and wal- 
nuts " — and couldn't approach her meaning. 

Clemency gave it up at last, as a hopeless attempt; 
and moving her chair by very slow degrees a little nearer 
to the stranger, sat with her eyes apparently cast down 
but glancing sharply at him now and then, waiting until 
he should ask some other question. She had not to wait 
long; for he said, presently: 

"And what is the after history of the young lady who 
went away? They know it, I suppose?" 



304 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

Clemency shook her head. " I've heard," she said, 
"that Doctor Jeddler is thought to know more of it than 
he tells. Miss Grace has had letters from her sister, 
saying that she was well and happy, and made much 
happier by her being married to Mr. Alfred; and has 
written letters back. But there's a mystery about her 
life and fortunes, altogether, which nothing has cleared 
up to this hour, and which — " 

She faltered here, and stopped. 

" And which " — repeated the stranger. 

" Which only one other person, I believe, could ex- 
plain," said Clemency, drawing her breath quickly. 

" Who may that be?" asked the stranger! 

"Mr. Michael Warden!" answered Clemency, almost 
in a shriek: at once conveying to her husband what she 
would have had him understand before, and letting 
Michael Warden know that he was recognised. 

" You remember me, sir?" said Clemency, trembling 
with emotion; "I saw just now you did! You remem- 
ber me, that night in the garden. I was with her!" 

"Yes. You were," he said. 

"Yes, sir," returned Clemency. "Yes, to be sure. 
This is my husband, if you please. Ben, my dear Ben, 
run to Miss Grace — run to Mr. Alfred — run somewhere, 
Ben! Bring somebody here, directly!" 

"Stay!" said Michael Warden, quietly interposing 
himself between the door and Britain. "What would 
you do?" 

" Let them know that you are here, sir," answered 
Clemency, clapping her hands in sheer agitation. " Let 
them know that they may hear of her, from your own 
lips; let them know that she is not quite lost to them, but 
that she will come home again yet, to bless her father 
and her loving sister — even her old servant, even me," 
she struck herself upon the breast with both hands, 
" with a sight of her sweet face. Run, Ben, run!" And 
still she pressed him on toward the door, and still Mr. 
Warden stood before it, with his hand stretched out, not 
angrily, but sorrowfully. 

" Or, perhaps," said Clemency, running past her hus- 
band and catching in her emotion at Mr. Warden's 
cloak, " perhaps she's here now; perhaps she's close by. 
I think from your manner she is. Let me see her, sir, if 
you please. I waited on her when she was a little child. 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 305 

I saw her grow to be the pride of all this place. I knew 
her when she was Mr. Alfred's promised wife. I tried 
to warn her when you tempted her away. I know what 
her old home was when she was like the soul of it, and 
how it changed when she was gone and lost. Let me 
speak to her, if you please!" 

He gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with 
wonder; but he made no gesture of assent. 

"I don't think she can know," pursued Clemency, 
" how truly they forgive her; how they love her; what 
joy it would be to them to see her once more. She may 
be timorous of going home. Perhaps if she sees me it 
may give her new heart. Only tell me, truly, Mr. War- 
den, is she with you?" 

" She is not," he answered, shaking his head. 

This answer, and his manner, and his black dress, and 
his coming back so quietly, and his announced intention 
of continuing to live abroad, explained it all. Marion 
was dead. 

He didn't contradict her; yes, she was dead! Cle- 
mency sat down, hid her face upon the table, and 
cried. 

At that moment, a grey-headed old gentleman came 
running in: quite out of breath, and panting so much 
that his voice was scarcely to be recognised as the voice 
of Mr. Snitchey. 

"Good Heaven, Mr. Warden!" said the lawyer, tak- 
ing him aside, "what wind has blown. — " He was so 
blown himself, that he couldn't get on any further until 
after a pause, when he added, feebly, " you here?" 

" An ill wind, I am afraid," he answered. "If you 
could have heard what has just passed — how I have been 
besought and entreated to perform impossibilities — what 
confusion and affliction I carry with me!" 

" I can guess it all. But why did you ever come here, 
my good sir?" retorted Snitchey. 

"Come! How should I know who kept the house? 
When I sent my servant on to you, I strolled in here be- 
cause the place was new to me; and I had a natural 
curiosity in everything new and old in these old scenes; 
and it was outside the town I wanted to communicate 
with you, first, before appearing there. I wanted to 
know what people would say to me. I see by your man- 
ner that you can tell me. If it were not for your con- 
21 



306 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

founded caution, I should have been possessed of every- 
thing long ago." 

"Our caution!" returned the lawyer, "speaking for 
Self and Craggs — deceased/' here Mr. Snitchey, glanc- 
ing at his hat-band, shook his head, "how can you rea- 
sonably blame us, Mr. Warden? It was understood 
between us that the subject was never to be renewed, 
and that it wasn't a subject on which grave and sober 
men like us (I made a note of your observations at the 
time) could interfere? Our caution too! When Mr. 
Craggs, sir, went down to his respected grave in the 
full belief—" 

"I had given a solemn promise of silence until I 
should return, whenever that might be," interrupted 
Mr. Warden; "and I have kept it." 

"Well, sir, and I repeat it," returned Mr. Snitchey, 
"we were bound to silence too! We were bound to 
silence in our duty towards ourselves, and in our duty 
towards a variety of clients, you among them, who were 
as close as wax. It was not our place to make inquiries 
of you on such a delicate subject. I had my suspicions, 
sir; but, it is not six months since I have known the 
truth, and been assured that you lost her." 

"By whom?" inquired his client. 

"By Doctor Jeddler himself, sir, who at last reposed 
that confidence in me voluntarily. He, and only he, has 
known the whole truth, years and years." 

" And you know it?" said his client. 

" I do, sir!" replied Snitchey; "and I have also reason 
to know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow 
evening. They have given her that promise. In the 
meantime, perhaps you'll give me the honour of your 
company at my house; being unexpected at your own. 
But, not to run the chance of any more such difficulties 
as you have had here, in case you should be recognised 
— though you're a good deal changed; I think I might 
have passed you myself, Mr. Warden — we had better 
dine here, and walk on in the evening. It's a very good 
place to dine at, Mr. Warden; your own property, by- 
the-bye. Self and Craggs (deceased) took a chop here 
sometimes, and had it very comfortably served. Mr. 
Craggs, sir," said Snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for 
an instant, and opening them again, "was struck off 
the roll of life too soon." 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 307 

" Heaven forgive me for not condoling with you/' re- 
turned Michael Warden, passing his hand across his 
forehead, "but I'm like a man in a dream at present. 
I seem to want my wits. Mr. Craggs — yes — I am very 
sorry we have lost Mr. Craggs." But he looked at 
Clemency as he said it, and seemed to sympathise with 
Ben, consoling her. 

"Mr. Craggs, sir," observed Snitchey, "didn't find 
life, I regret to say, as easy to have and to hold as his 
theory made it out, or he would have been among us 
now. It's a great loss to me. He was my right arm, 
my right leg, my right ear, my right eye, was Mr. 
Craggs. I am paralytic without him. He bequeathed 
his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs, her executors, 
administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the 
Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of way, to 
make believe, sometimes, that he is alive. You may 
observe that I speak for Self and Craggs — deceased, sir 
— deceased," said the tender-hearted attorney, waving 
his pocket-handkerchief. 

Michael Warden, who had still been observant of 
Clemency, turned to Mr. Snitchey, when he ceased to 
speak, and whispered in his ear. 

" Ah, poor thing!" said Snitchey, shaking his head. 
"Yes. She was always very faithful to Marion. She 
was always very fond of her. Pretty Marion! Poor 
Marion ! Cheer up, mistress — you are married now, you 
know, Clemency." 

Clemency only sighed, and shook her head. 

"Well, well! Wait till to-morrow," said the lawyer, 
kindly. 

" To-morrow can't bring back the dead to life, mister," 
said Clemency, sobbing. 

"No. It can't do that, or it would bring back Mr. 
Craggs, deceased," returned the lawyer. "But it may 
bring some soothing circumstances; it may bring some 
comfort. Wait till to-morrow!" 

So Clemency, shaking his proffered hand, said she 
would; and Britain, who had been terribly cast down at 
sight of his despondent wife (which was like the busi- 
ness hanging its head), said that was right; and Mr. 
Snitchey and Michael Warden went up-stairs; and there 
they were soon engaged in a conversation so cautiously 
conducted, that no murmur of it was audible above the 



308 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

clatter of plates and dishes, the hissing of the frying- 
pan, the bubbling of saucepans, the low, monotonous 
waltzing of the jack — with a dreadful click every now 
and then, as if it had met with some mortal accident to 
its head, in a fit of giddiness — and all the other prepara- 
tions in the kitchen for their dinner. 

To-morrow was a bright and peaceful day; and no- 
where were the autumn tints more beautifully seen, 
than from the quiet orchard of the Doctor's house. The 
snows of many winter nights had melted from that 
ground, the withered leaves of many summer times had 
rustled there, since she had fled. The honey-suckle 
porch was green again, the trees cast bountiful and 
changing shadows on the grass, the landscape was as 
tranquil and serene as it had ever been; but where was 
she! 

Not there ! Not there ! She would have been a stranger 
sight in her old home now, even than that home had 
been at first, without her. But a lady sat in the familiar 
place, from whose heart she had never passed away; in 
whose true memory she lived, unchanging, youthful, 
radiant with all promise and all hope; in whose affec- 
tion — and it was a mother's now, there was a cherished 
little daughter playing by her side — she had no rival, no 
successor; upon whose gentle lips her name was trem- 
bling then. 

The spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes. 
Those eyes of Grace, her sister, sitting with her hus- 
band in the orchard, on their wedding-day, and his and 
Marion's birthday. 

He had not become a great man; he had not grown 
rich; he had not forgotten the scenes and friends of his 
youth; he had not fulfilled any one of the Doctor's old 
predictions. But in his useful, patient, unknown visit- 
ing of poor men's homes: and in his watching of sick 
beds; and in his daily knowledge of the gentleness and 
goodness flowering the by-paths of this world, not to be 
trodden down beneath the heavy foot of poverty, but 
springing up, elastic, in its track, and making its way 
beautiful; he had better learned and proved, in each 
succeeding year, the truth of his old faith. The manner 
of his life, though quiet and remote, had shown him how 
often men still entertained angels, unawares, as in the 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 309 

olden time; and how the most unlikely forms — even 
some that were mean and ugly to the view, and poorly 
clad — became irradiated by the couch of sorrow, want, 
and pain, and changed to ministering spirits with a glory 
round their heads. 

He lived to better purpose on the altered battle- 
ground, perhaps, than if he had contended restlessly in 
more ambitious lists; and he was happy with his wife, 
dear Grace. 

And Marion. Had he forgotten her? 

"The time has flown, dear Grace," he said, "since 
then;" they had been talking of that night; " and yet it 
seems a long while ago. We count by changes and 
events within us. Not by years." 

"Yet we have years to count by, too, since Marion 
was with us," returned Grace. " Six times, dear hus- 
band, counting to-night as one, we have sat here on her 
birthday, and spoken together of that happy return, so 
eagerly expected and so long deferred. Ah, when will 
it be! When will it be!" 

Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears col- 
lected in her eyes; and drawing nearer, said: 

" But Marion told you, in that farewell letter which 
she left for you upon your table, love, and which you 
read so often, that years must pass away before it could 
be. Did she not?" 

She took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and 
said, "Yes." 

"That through those intervening years, however 
happy she might be, she would look forward to the time 
when you would meet again, and all would be made 
clear; and that she prayed you, trustfully and hopefully, 
to do the same. The letter runs so, does it not, my dear?" 

"Yes, Alfred." 

" And every other letter she has written since?" 

"Except the last — some months ago — in which she 
spoke of you, and what you then knew, and what I was 
to learn to-night." 

He looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and said 
that the appointed time was sunset. 

" Alfred!" said Grace, laying her hand upon his shoul- 
der earnestly, "there is something in this letter — this 
old letter, which you say I read so often — that I have 
never told you. But, to-night, dear husband, with that 






310 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

sunset drawing near, and all our life seeming to soften 
and become hushed with the departing day, I cannot 
keep it secret." 

"What is it, love?" 

" When Marion went away, she wrote me, here, that 
you had once left her a sacred trust to me, and that now 
she left you, Alfred, such a trust in my hands: praying 
and beseeching me, as I loved her, and as I loved you, 
not to reject the affection she believed (she knew, she 
said) you would transfer to me when the new wound was 
healed, but to encourage and return it." 

" — And make me a proud, and happy man again, 
Grace. Did she say so?" 

" She meant, to make myself so blest and honoured in 
your love," was his wife's answer, as he held her in his 
arms. 

" Hear me, my dear!" he said. " No. Hear me so!"— 
and as he spoke, he gently laid the head she had raised 
again upon his shoulder. "I know why I have never 
heard this passage in the letter, until now. I know why 
no trace of it ever showed itself in any word or look of 
yours at that time. I know why Grace, although so 
true a friend to me, was hard to win to be my wife. 
And knowing it, my own ! I know the priceless value of 
the heart I gird within my arms, and thank God for the 
rich possession!" 

She wept, but not for sorrow, as he pressed her to his 
heart. After a brief space, he looked down at the child 
who was sitting at their feet playing with a little basket 
of flowers, and bade her look how golden and how red 
the sun was. 

"Alfred," said Grace, raising her head quickly at 
these words. " The sun is going down. You have not 
forgotten what I am to know before it sets." 

"You are to know the truth of Marion's history, my 
love," he answered. 

"All the truth," she said, imploringly. "Nothing 
veiled from me any more. That was the promise. Was 
it not?" 

" It was," he answered. 

" Before the sun went down on Marion's birthday. 
And you see it Alfred? It is sinking fast." 

He put his arm about her waist, and looking steadily 
into her eyes, rejoined: 



I m 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 311 

" That truth is not reserved so long for me to tell, dear 
Grace. It is to come frqm. other lips." 

" From other lips!"' she faintly echoed. 

"Yes. I know your constant heart, I know how brave 
you are, I know that to you a word of preparation is 
enough. You have said, truly, that the time is come. 
It is. Tell me that you have present fortitude to bear a 
trial — a surprise — a shock: and the messenger is waiting 
at the gate." 

' ' What messenger ?" she said. ' ' And wha/t intelligence 
does he bring?" 

" I am pledged," he answered her, preserving his 
steady look, "to say no more. Do you think you under- 
stand me?" 

" I am afraid to think," she said. 

There was that emotion in his face, despite its steady 
gaze, which frightened her. Again she hid her own 
face on his shoulder, trembling, and entreated him to 
pause — a moment. 

" Courage, my wife! When you have firmness to re- 
ceive the messenger, the messenger is waiting at the 
gate. The sun is setting on Marion's birthday. Cour- 
age, courage, Grace!" 

She raised her head, and, looking at him, told him she 
was ready. As she stood, and looked upon him going 
away, her face was so like Marion's as it had been in her 
later days at home, that it was wonderful to see. He 
took the child with him. She called her back — she bore 
the lost girl's name — and pressed her to her bosom. The 
little creature, being released again, sped after him, and 
Grace was left alone. 

She knew not what she dreaded, or what hoped; but 
remained there, motionless, looking at the porch by 
which they had disappeared. 

Ah! what was that, emerging from its shadow; stand- 
ing on its threshold! That figure, with its white gar- 
ments rustling in the evening air; its head laid down 
upon her father's breast, and pressed against it to his 
loving heart! Oh, God! was it a vision that came burst- 
ing from the old man's arms, and, with a cry, and with 
a waving of its hands, and with a wild precipitation of 
itself upon her in its boundless love, sank down in her 
embrace ! 

" Oh, Marion, Marion! Oh, my sister! Oh, my heart's 



312 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 






dear love! Oh, joy and happiness unutterable, so to 
meet again!" 

It was no dream, no phantom conjured up by hope and 
fear, but Marion, sweet Marion! So beautiful, so happy, 
so unalloyed by care and trial, so elevated and exalted 
in her loveliness, that, as the setting sun shone brightly 
on her upturned face, she might have been a spirit 
visiting the earth upon a healing mission. 

Clinging to her sister, who had dropped upon a seat 
and bent down over her — and smiling through her tears 
— and kneeling, close before her, with both arms twin- 
ing round her, and never turning for an instant from 
her face — and with the glory of the setting sun upon 
her brow, and with the soft tranquillity of evening gath- 
ering around them — Marion at length broke silence; her 
voice, so calm, low, clear, and pleasant, well-tuned to 
the time. 

"When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be 
now again — " 

"Stay, my sweet love! A moment! Oh, Marion, to 
hea/r you speak again." 

She could not bear the voice she loved, so well, at first. 

"When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be 
now again, I loved him from my soul. I loved him 
most devotedly. I would have died for him, though I 
was so young. I never slighted his affection in my 
secret breast, for one brief instant. It was far beyond all 
price to me. Although it is so long ago, and past and 
gone, and everything is wholly changed, I could not 
bear to think that you, who loved so well, should think 
I did not truly love him once. I never loved him better, 
Grace, than when he left this very scene upon this very 
day. I never loved him better, dear one, than I did that 
night when J left here." 

Her sister, bending over her, could look into her face, 
and hold her fast. 

"But he had gained, unconsciously," said Marion, 
with a gentle smile, " another heart, before I knew that 
I had one to give him. That heart — yours, my sister! — 
was so yielded up, in all its other tenderness, to me; was 
so devoted, and so noble; that it plucked its love away, 
and kept its secret from all eyes but mine — Ah! what 
other eyes were quickened by such tenderness and grat- 
itude! — and was content to sacrifice itself to me. But I 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 313 

knew something of its depths. I knew the struggle it 
had made. I knew its high inestimable worth to him, 
and his appreciation of it, let him love me as he 
would. I knew the debt I owed it. I had its great 
example every day before me. What you had done for 
me, I knew that I could do, Grace, if I would, for you. 
I never laid my head down on my pillow, but I prayed 
with tears to do it. I never laid my head down on my 
pillow, but I thought of Alfred's own words, on the day 
of his departure, and how truly he had said (for I knew 
that, knowing you) that there were victories gained 
every day, in struggling hearts, to which these fields of 
battle were as nothing. Thinking more and more upon 
the great endurance cheerfully sustained, and never 
known or cared for, that there must be, every day and 
hour, in that great strife of which he spoke, my trial 
seemed to grow light and easy. And he who knows our 
hearts, my dearest, at this moment, and who knows 
there is no drop of bitterness or grief — of anything but 
unmixed happiness — in mine, enabled me to make the 
resolution that I never would be Alfred's wife. That he 
should be my brother, and your husband, if the course I 
took could bring that happy end to pass; but that I never 
would (Grace, I then loved him dearly, dearly!) be his 
wife!" 

"Oh, Marion! Oh, Marion!" 

"I had tried to seem indifferent to him;" and she 
pressed her sister's face against her own; "but that was 
hard, and you were always his true advocate. I had 
tried to tell you of my resolution, but you would never 
hear me; you would never understand me. The time 
was drawing near for his return. I felt that I must act, 
before the daily intercourse between us was renewed. I 
knew that one great pang, undergone at that time, 
would save a lengthened agony to all of us. I knew 
that if I went away then, that end must follow which 
has followed, and which has made us both so happy, 
Grace! I wrote to good Aunt Martha, for a refuge in 
her house: I did not then tell her all, but something of 
my story, and she freely promised it. While I was con- 
testing that step with myself, and with my love of you, 
and home, Mr. Warden, brought here by an accident, 
became, for some time, our companion." 

"I have sometimes feared of late years, that this 






314 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

might have been/' exclaimed her sister; and her counte- 
nance was ashy-pale. "You never loved him — and you 
married him in your self-sacrifice to me!" 

" He was then," said Marion, drawing her sister closer 
to her, " on the eve of going secretly away for a long 
time. He wrote to me, after leaving here; told me what 
his condition and prospects really were; and offered me 
his hand. He told me he had seen I was not happy in 
the prospect of Alfred's return. I believe he thought 
my heart had no part in that contract; perhaps thought 
I might have loved him once, and did not then; perhaps 
thought that when I tried to seem indifferent, I tried to 
hide indifference — I cannot tell. But I wished that you 
should feel me wholly lost to Alfred — hopeless to him — 
dead. Do you understand me, love?" 

Her sister looked into her face, attentively. She 
seemed in doubt. 

" I saw Mr. Warden, and confided in his honour; 
charged him with my secret, on the eve of his and my 
departure. He kept it. Do you understand me, dear?" 

Grace looJked confusedly upon her. She scarcely 
seemed to hear. 

"My love, my sister!" said Marion, "recall your 
thoughts a moment; listen to me. Do not look so 
strangely on me. There are countries, dearest, where 
those who would abjure a misplaced passion, or would 
strive against some cherished feeling of their hearts and 
conquer it, retire into hopeless solitude, and close the 
world against themselves and worldly loves and hopes 
forever. When women do so, they assume that name 
which is so dear to you and me, and call each other 
Sisters. But, there may be sisters, Grace, who, in the 
broad world out of doors, and underneath its free sky, 
and in its crowded places, and among its busy life, and 
trying to assist and cheer it, and to do some good 
— learn the same lesson; and who, with hearts still fresh 
and young, and open to all happiness and means of hap- 
piness, can say the battle is long past, the victory long 
won. And such a one am I! You understand me 
now?" 

Still she looked fixedly upon her, and made no reply. 

"Oh, Grace, dear Grace," said Marion, clinging yet 
more tenderly and fondly to that breast from which she 
had been so long exiled, " if you were not a happy wife 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 315 

and mother — if I had no little namesake here — if Alfred, 
my kind brother, were not your own fond husband — 
from whence could I derive the ecstasy I feel to-night! 
But, as I left here, so I have returned. My heart has 
known no other love, my hand has never been bestowed 
apart from it. I am still your maiden sister, unmarried, 
unbetrothed: your own old loving Marion, in whose af- 
fection you exist alone and have no partner, Grace!" 

She understood her now. Her face relaxed; sobs came 
to her relief; and falling on her neck, she wept and wept, 
and fondled her as if she were a child again. 

When they were more composed, they found that the 
Doctor, and his sister, good Aunt Martha, were stand- 
ing near at hand, with Alfred. 

" This is a weary day for me," said good Aunt Martha, 
smiling through her tears, as she embraced her nieces; 
for I lose my dear companion in making you all happy; 
and what can you give me, in return for my Marion?" 

" A converted brother," said the Doctor. 

" That's something, to be sure," retorted Aunt Martha, 
" in such a farce as — " 

" No, pray don't," said the Doctor, penitently. 

" Well, I won't," replied Aunt Martha. " But, I con- 
sider myself ill-used. I don't know what's to become of 
me without my Marion, after we have lived together 
half-a-dozen years." 

" You must come and live here, I suppose," replied 
the Doctor. " We shan't quarrel now, Martha." 

"Or you must get married, aunt," said Alfred. 

"Indeed," returned the old lady, "I think it might be 
a good speculation if I were to set my cap at Michael 
Warden, who, I hear, is come home much the better for 
his absence in all respects. But as I knew him when he 
was a boy, and I was not a very young woman then, 
perhaps he mightn't respond. So I'll make up my mind 
to go and live with Marion, when she marries, and until 
then (it will not be very long, I dare say) to live alone. 
What do you say, brother?" 

"I've a great mind to say it's a ridiculous world alto- 
gether, and there is nothing serious in it," observed the 
poor old Doctor. 

" You might take twenty affidavits of it if you chose, 
Anthony," said his sister; "but nobody would believe 
you with such eyes as those." 



316 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

"It's a world full of hearts/' said the Doctor, hugging 
his younger daughter, and bending across her to hug 
Grace — for he couldn't separate the sisters; "and a se- 
rious world, with all its folly — even with mine, which 
was enough to have swamped the whole globe; and it 
is a world on which the sun never rises, but it looks upon 
a thousand bloodless battles that are some set-off against 
the miseries and wickedness of Battle-Fields; and it is 
a w^orld we need be careful how we libel, Heaven forgive 
us, for it is a world of sacred mysteries, and its Creator 
only knows what lies beneath the surface of His lightest 
image!" 

You would not be the better pleased with my rude 
pen, if it dissected and laid open to your view the trans- 
ports of this family, long severed and now reunited. 
Therefore, I will not follow the poor Doctor through his 
humbled recollection of the sorrow he had had, when 
Marion was lost to him; nor will I tell how serious he 
had found that world to be in which some love, deep- 
anchored, is the portion of all human creatures; nor 
how such a trifle as the absence of one little unit in 
the great absurd account, had stricken him to the 
ground. Nor how, in compassion for his distress, his 
sister had, long ago, revealed the truth to him by slow 
degrees, and brought him to the knowledge of the heart 
of his self -banished daughter, and to that daughter's side. 

Nor how Alfred Heathfield had been told the truth, 
too, in the course of that then current year; and Marion 
had seen him, and had promised him, as her brother, 
that on her birthday, in the evening, Grace should 
know it from her lips at last. 

"I beg your pardon, Doctor," said Mr. Snitchey, 
looking into the orchard, "but have I liberty to 
come in ? " 

Without waiting for permission, he came straight to 
Marion, and kissed her hand, quite joyfully. 

" If Mr. Craggs had been alive, my dear Miss Marion," 
said Mr. Snitchey, "he would have had great interest 
in this occasion. It might have suggested to him, Mr. 
Alfred, that our life is not too easy perhaps; that, taken 
altogether, it will bear any little smoothing we can 
give it; but Mr. Craggs was a man who could endure 
to be convinced, sir. He was always open to convic- 



a 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 317 

tion. If he were open to conviction, now, I — this is 
weakness. Mrs. Snitchey, my dear/' — at his summons, 
that lady appeared from behind the door,— "you are 
among old friends." 

Mrs. Snitchey having delivered her congratulations, 
took her husband aside. ' 

" One moment, Mr. Snitchey," said that lady. " It is 
not in my nature to rake up the ashes of the departed." 

" No, my dear," returned her husband. 

" Mr. Craggs is — " 

"Yes, my dear, he is deceased," said Mr. Snitchey. 
But I ask you if you recollect," pursued his wife, 

that evening of the ball? I only ask you that. If 
you do; and if your memory has not entirely failed 
you, Mr. Snitchey; and if you are not absolutely in 
your dotage; I ask you to connect this time with that 
— to remember how I begged and prayed you, on my 
knees — " 

" Upon your knees, my dear!" said Mr. Snitchey. 

"Yes," said Mrs. Snitchey, confidently, "and you 
know it — to beware of that man — to observe his eye — 
and now to tell me whether I was right, and whether 
at that moment he knew secrets which he didn't choose 
to tell." 

Mrs. Snitchey," returned her husband, in her ear; 

Madam. Did you ever observe anything in my eye?" 
No," said Mrs. Snitchey, sharply. "Don't flatter 
yourself." 

" Because, ma'am, that night," he continued, twitch- 
ing her by the sleeve, "it happens that we both knew 
secrets which we didn't choose to tell, and both knew 
just the same professionally. And so the less you say 
about such things the better, Mrs. Snitchey; and take 
this as a warning to have wiser and more charitable 
eyes another time. Miss Marion, I brought a friend of 
yours along with me. Here, mistress!" 

Poor Clemency, with her apron to her eyes, came 
slowly in, escorted by her husband; the latter doleful 
with the presentiment, that if she abandoned herself to 
grief, the Nutmeg Grater was done for. 

" Now, mistress," said the lawyer, checking Marion as 
she ran towards her, and interposing himself between 
them, " what's the matter with you?" 

"The matter," cried poor Clemency. — When, looking 









318 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 

up in wonder, and in indignant remonstrance, and in 
the added emotion of a great roar from Mr. Britain, and 
seeing that sweet face so well-remembered close before 
her, she stared, sobbed, laughed, cried, screamed, em- 
braced her, held her fast, released her, fell on Mr. 
Snitchey and embraced him (much to Mrs. Snitchey's 
indignation), fell on the Doctor and embraced him, fell 
on Mr. Britain and embraced him, and concluded by 
embracing herself, throwing her apron over her head, 
and going into hysterics behind it. 

A stranger had come into the orchard, after Mr. 
Snitchey, and had remained apart, near the gate, with- 
out being observed by any of the group; for they had 
little spare attention to bestow, and that had been 
monopolised by the ecstasies of Clemency. He did not 
appear to wish to be observed, but stood alone, with 
downcast eyes; and there was an air of dejection about 
him (though he was a gentleman of a gallant appear- 
ance) which the general happiness rendered more re- 
markable. 

None but the quick eyes of Aunt Martha, however, re- 
marked him at all; but almost as soon as she espied 
him, she was in conversation with him. Presently, go- 
ing tr where Marion stood with Grace and her little 
tviixiesake, she whispered something in Marion's ear, at 
which she started, and appeared surprised; but soon re- 
covering from her confusion, she timidly approached 
the stranger, in Aunt Martha's company, and engaged 
in conversation with him, too. 

"Mr. Britain," said the lawyer, putting his hand in 
his pocket, and bringing out a legal-looking document 
while this was going on, " I congratulate you. You are 
now the whole and sole proprietor of that freehold ten- 
ement, at present occupied and held by yourself as a 
licensed tavern, or house of public entertainment, and 
commonly called or known by the sign of the Nutmeg 
Grater. Your wife lost one house, through my client, 
Mr. Michael Warden, and now gains another. I shall 
have the pleasure of canvassing you for the county, one 
of these fine mornings." 

" Would it make any difference in the vote if the sign 
was altered, sir?" asked Britain. 

" Not in the least," replied the lawyer. 

"Then/' said Mr. Britain, handing him back the con- 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE. 319 

veyance, "just clap in the words 'and Thimble/ will 
you be so good; and Fll have the two mottoes painted 
up in the parlour, instead of my wife's portrait." 

"And let me/' said a voice behind them; it was the 
stranger's — Michael Warden's; ' ' let me claim the benefit 
of those inscriptions. Mr. Heathfield and Dr. Jeddler, 
I might have deeply wronged you both. That I did not, 
is no virtue of my own. I will not say that I am six 
years wiser than I was, or better. But I have known, 
at any rate, that term of self-reproach. I can urge no 
reason why you should deal gently with me. I abused 
the hospitality of this house; and learned my own de- 
merits, with a shame I have never forgotten, yet with 
some profit, too, I would fain hope, from one/' he glanced 
at Marion, "to whom I made my humble supplication 
for forgiveness, when I knew her merit and my deep 
unworthiness. In a few days I shall quit this place 
forever. I entreat your pardon. Do as you would be 
done by! Forget and forgive!" 

Time — from whom I had the latter portion of this 
story, and with whom I have the pleasure of a personal 
acquaintance of some five-and-thirty years' duration — 
informed me, leaning easily upon his scythe, that 
Michael Warden never went away again, and never 
sold his house, but opened it afresh, maintained a golden 
mean of hospitality, and had a wife, the pride and hon- 
our of that country-side, whose name was Marion. But, 
as I have observed that Time confuses facts occasionally, 
I hardly know what weight to give to his authority. 






THE HAUNTED MAN, 

AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE GIFT BESTOWED. 

Everybody said so. 

Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says 
must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong 
as right. In the general experience, everybody has been 
wrong so often, and it has taken in most instances such 
a weary while to find out how wrong, that authority is 
proved to be fallible. Everybody may sometimes be 
right; "but that's no rule/' as the ghost of Giles Scrog- 
gins says in the ballad. 

The dread word, Ghost, recalls me. 

Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The 
extent of my present claim for everybody is, that they 
were so far right. He did. 

Who could have seen his hollow cheek, his sunken 
brilliant eye, his black-attired figure, indefinably grim, 
although well-knit and well-proportioned; his grizzled 
hair hanging, like tangled sea-weed, about his face — as 
if he had been, through his whole life, a lonely mark 
for the chafing and beating of the great deep of 
humanity — but might have said he looked like a haunted 
man? 

Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, 
thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, re- 
tiring always and jocund never, with a distraught air 
of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening 
22 P321 



322 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

to some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it 
was the manner of a haunted man. 

Who could have heard his voice, slow-speaking, deep, 
and grave, with a natural fulness and melody in it which 
he seemed to set himself against and stop, but might 
have said it was the voice of a haunted man? 

Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part 
library and part laboratory — for he was, as the world 
knew, far and wide, a learned man in chemistry, and a 
teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring 
ears and eyes hung daily — who that had seen him there, 
upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and 
instruments and books; the shadow of his shaded lamp 
a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless among a 
crowd of spectral shapes raised there by the flickering 
of the fire upon the quaint objects around him; some of 
these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that held 
liquids), trembling at heart like things that knew his 
power to uncombine them, and to give back their com- 
ponent parts to fire and vapour — who that had seen him 
then, his work done, and he, pondering in his chair be- 
fore the rusted grate and red flame, moving his thin 
mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not 
have said that the man seemed haunted and the cham- 
ber too. 

Who might not, by a very easy flight of fancy, have 
believed that everything about him took this haunted 
tone, and that he lived on haunted ground? 

His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like — an old, 
retired part of an ancient endowment for students, once 
a brave edifice planted in an open place, but now the 
obsolete whim of forgotten architects; smoke- age-and- 
weather-darkened, squeezed on every side by the over- 
growing of the great city, and choked, like an old well, 
with stones and bricks; its small quadrangles, lying 
down in very pits formed by the streets and buildings, 
which, in course of time, had been constructed above its 
heavy chimney stacks; its old trees, insulted by the 
neighbouring smoke, which deigned to droop so low 
when it was very feeble and the weather very moody; 
its grass-plots, struggling with the mildewed earth to be 
grass, or to win any show of compromise; its silent 
pavement, unaccustomed to the tread of feet, and even 
to the observation of eyes, except when a stray face 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 323 

looked down from the upper world, wondering what nook 
it was; its sun-dial in a little bricked-up corner, where 
no sun had straggled for a hundred years, but where, in 
compensation for the sun's neglect, the snow would lie 
for weeks when it lay nowhere else, and the bleak east 
wind would spin like a huge humming-top, when in all 
other places it was silent and still. 

His dwelling, at its heart and core— within doors — at 
his fireside — was so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so 
strong, with its worm-eaten beams of wood in the ceil- 
ing and its sturdy floor shelving downward to the great 
oak chimney-piece; so environed and hemmed in by the 
pressure of the town, yet so remote in fashion, age, and 
custom; so quiet, yet so thundering with echoes when a 
distant voice was raised or a door was shut — echoes not 
confined to the many low passages and empty rooms, 
but rumbling and grumbling till they were stifled in the 
heavy air of the forgotten Crypt where the Norman 
arches were half buried in the earth. 

You should have seen him in his dwelling about 
twilight, in the dead winter time. 

When the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, with 
the going down of the blurred sun. When it was just 
so dark, as that the forms of things were indistinct and 
big — but not wholly lost. When sitters by the fire began 
to see wild faces and figures, mountains and abysses, 
ambuscades and armies, in the coals. When people in 
the streets bent down their heads and ran before the 
weather. When those who were obliged to meet it, 
were stopped at angry corners, stung by wandering 
snow-flakes alighting on the lashes of their eyes — which 
fell too sparingly, and were blown away too quickly, to 
leave a trace upon the frozen ground. When windows 
of private houses closed up tight and warm. When 
lighted gas began to burst forth in the busy and the 
quiet streets, fast blackening otherwise. When stray 
pedestrians, shivering along the latter, looked down at 
the glowing fires in kitchens, and sharpened their sharp 
appetites by sniffing up the fragrance of whole miles of 
dinners. 

When travellers by land were bitter cold, and looked 
wearily on gloomy landscapes, rustling and shuddering 
in the blast. When mariners at sea, outlying upon icy 
yards, were tossed and swung above the howling ocean 




324 THE HAUNTED MAN 



dreadfully. When light-houses, on rocks and head- 
lands, showed solitary and watchful; and benighted 
sea-birds breasted on against their ponderous lanterns, 
and fell dead. When little readers of story books, by 
the firelight, trembled to think of Cassim 'Baba cut into 
quarters, hanging in the Robbers' Cave, or had some 
small misgivings that the fierce little old woman, with 
the crutch, who used to start out of the box in the 
merchant Abudah's bedroom, might, one of these nights, 
be found upon the stairs, in the long, cold, dusky 
journey up to bed. 

When, in rustic places, the last glimmering of day- 
light died away from the ends of avenues; and the trees, 
arching overhead, were sullen and black. When, in 
parks and woods, the high wet fern and sodden moss 
and beds of fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were lost 
to view, in masses of impenetrable shade. When mists 
arose from dyke, and fen, and river. When lights in 
old halls and in cottage windows were a cheerful sight. 
When the mill stopped, the wheelwright and the black- 
smith shut their workshops, the turnpike-gate closed, 
the plough and harrow were left lonely in the fields, the 
labourer and team went home, and the striking of the 
church clock had a deeper sound than at noon, and the 
churchyard wicket would be swung no more that night. 

When twilight everywhere released the shadows, 
prisoned up all day, that now closed in and gathered 
like mustering swarms of ghosts. When they stood 
lowering in corners of rooms, and frowned out from 
behind half-opened doors. When they had full posses- 
sion of unoccupied apartments. When they danced 
upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings of inhabited 
chambers while the fire was low,- and withdrew like 
ebbing waters when it sprung into a blaze. When they 
fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects, 
making the nurse an ogress, the rocking-horse a 
monster, the wondering child, half-scared and half- 
amused, a stranger to itself — the very tongs upon the 
hearth a straddling giant with his arms a-kimbo, evi- 
dently smelling the blood of Englishmen, and wanting 
to grind people's bones to make his bread. 

When these shadows brought into the minds of older 
people other thoughts, and showed them different 
images. When they stole from their retreats, in the 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 32., 

likenesses of forms and faces from the past, from th<i 
grave, from the deep, deep gulf, where the things that 
might have been, and never were, are always wandering. 

When he sat, as already mentioned, gazing at the 
fire. When, as it rose and fell, the shadows went and 
came. When he took no heed of them, with his bodily 
eyes; but, let them come or let them go, looked fixedly 
at the fire. You should have seen him, then. 

When the sounds that had arisen with the shadows 
and come out of faieir lurking places at the twilight 
summons, seemed to make a deeper stillness all about 
him. When the wind was rumbling in the chimney, 
and sometimes crooning, sometimes howling, in the 
house. When the old trees outward were so shaken and 
beaten, that one querulous old rook, unable to sleep, 
protested now and then, * in a feeble, dozy, high-up 
"Caw!" When, at intervals, the window trembled, the 
rusty vane upon the turret-top complained, the clock 
beneath it recorded that another quarter of an hour was 
gone, or the fire collapsed and fell in with a rattle. 

— When a knock came at his door, in short, as he was 
sitting so, and roused him. 

" Who's that?" said he, " come in!" 

Surely there had been no figure leaning on the back 
of his chair; no face looking over it. It is certain 
that no gliding footstep touched the floor, as he lifted 
up his head with a start and spoke. And yet there was 
no mirror in the room on whose surface his own form 
could have cast its shadow for a moment: and Some- 
thing had passed darkly and gone. 

"I'm humbly fearful, sir," said afresh-coloured, busy 
man, holding the door open with his foot for the admis- 
sion of himself and a wooden tray he carried, and let- 
ting it go again by very gentle and careful degrees, 
when he and the tray had got in, lest it should close 
noisily, ' ' that it's a good bit past the time to-night. But 
Mrs. William has been taken off her legs so often — " 

" By the wind? Ay! I have heard it rising." 

" — By the wind, sir — that it's a mercy she got home 
at all. Oh, dear, yes. Yes. It was by the wind, Mr. 
Redlaw. By the wind." 

He had, by this time, put down the tray for dinner, 
and was employed in lighting the lamp, and spreading 
a cloth on the table. From this employment he desisted 



3 326 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

^n a hurry, to stir and feed the fire, and then resumed 
r it; the lamp he had lighted, and the blaze that rose 
under his hand, so quickly changing the appearance of 
the room, that it seemed as if the mere coming in of his 
fresh red face and active manner had made the pleasant 
alteration. 

"Mrs. William is of course subject at any time, sir, 
to be taken off her balance by the elements. She is not 
formed superior to that.'" 

" No," returned Mr. Redlaw, good-naturedly, though 
abruptly. 

" No, sir. Mrs. William maybe taken off her balance 
by Earth; as, for example, last Sunday week, when 
sloppy and greasy, and she going out to tea with her 
newest sister-in-law, and having a pride in herself, and 
wishing to appear perfectly Spotless though pedestrian. 
Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Air; as 
being once over-persuaded by a friend to try a swing at 
Peckham Fair, which acted on her constitution in- 
stantly like a steamboat. Mrs. William may be taken 
off her balance by Fire; as on a false alarm of engines 
at her mother's, when she went two miles in her night- 
cap. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by 
Water; as at Batter sea, when rowed into the piers by 
her nephew, Charley Swidger, junior, aged twelve, 
which had no idea of boats whatever. But these are 
elements. Mrs. William must be taken out of elements 
for the strength of her character to come into play." 

As he stopped for a reply, the reply was, "Yes," in 
the same tone as before. 

" Yes, sir. Oh, dear, yes!" said Mr. Swidger, still pro- 
ceeding with his preparations, and checking them off 
as he made them, "That's where it is, sir. That's 
what I always §ay myself, sir. Such a many of us 
Swidgers! — Pepper. Why there's my father, sir, super- 
annuated keeper and custodian of this Institution, 
eighty-seven years old. He's a Swidger! — Spoon." 

" True, William," was the patient and abstracted 
answer, when he stopped again. 

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Swidger. " That's what I always 
say, sir. You may call him the trunk of the tree! — 
Bread. Then you come to his successor, my unworthy 
self— Salt— and Mrs. William, Swidgers both. — Knife 
and fork. Then you come to all my brothers and their 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 327 

families, Swidgers, man and woman, boy and girl. 
Why, what with cousins, uncles, aunts, and relation- 
ships of this, that and t'other degree, and what-not de- 
gree, and marriages, and lyings-in, the Swidgers — 
Tumbler — might take hold of hands, and make a ring 
round England!" 

Receiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful 
man whom he addressed, Mr. William approached him 
nearer, and made a feint of accidentally knocking the 
table with a decanter to rouse him. The moment he 
succeeded, he went on, as if in great alacrity of acqui- 
escence. 

"Yes, sir! That's just what I say myself, sir. Mrs. 
William and me have often said so. ' There's Swidgers 
enough,' we say, * without our voluntary contributions — 
Butter. In fact, sir, my father is a family in himself — 
Castors — to take care of; and it happens all for the best 
that we have no child of our own, though it's made Mrs. 
William rather quiet-like, too. Quite ready for the 
fowl and mashed potatoes, sir? Mrs. William said she'd 
dish in ten minutes when I left the Lodge." 

" I am quite ready/' said the other, waking as from a 
dream, and walking slowly to and fro. 

"Mrs. William has been at it again, sir!" said the 
keeper, as he stood warming a plate at the fire, and 
pleasantly shading his face with it. Mr. Redlaw stopped 
in his walking, and an expression of interest appeared 
in him. 

"What I always say myself, sir. She will do it! 
There's a motherly feeling in Mrs. William's breast that 
must and will have went." 

"What has she done?" 

"Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of mother 
to all the young gentlemen that come up from a wariety 
of parts, to attend your courses of lectures at this 
ancient foundation — it's surprising how stone-chaney 
catches the heat, this frosty weather, to be sure !" Here 
he turned the plates, and cooled his fingers. 

"Well?" said Mr. Redlaw. 

"That's just what I say myself, sir," returned Mr. 
William, speaking over his shoulder, as if in ready 
and delighted assent. " That's exactly where it is, sir! 
There ain't one of our students but appears to regard 
Mrs. William in that light. Every day, right through 







328 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

the course, they put their heads into the Lodge, one 
after another, and have all got something to tell her. or 
something to ask her. ' Swidge' is the appellation by 
which they speak of Mrs. William in general, among 
themselves, I'm told; but that's what I say, sir. Better 
be called ever so far out of your name, if it's done in 
real liking, than have it made ever so much of, and not 
cared about! What's a name for? To know a person 
by. If Mrs. William is known by something better 
than her name — I allude to Mrs. William's qualities 
and disposition — never mind her name, though it is 
Swidger, by rights. Let 'em call her Swidge, Widge, 
Bridge — Lord! London Bridge, Blackfriars, Chelsea, 
Putney, Waterloo, or Hammersmith Suspension — if 
they like!" 

The close of this triumphant oration brought him and 
the plate to the table, upon which he half laid and half 
dropped it, with a lively sense of its being thoroughly 
heated, just as the subject of his praises entered the 
room, bearing another tray and a lantern, and followed 
by a venerable old man with long grey hair. 

Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, inno- 
cent-looking person, in whose smooth cheeks the cheer- 
ful red of her husband's official waistcoat was very 
pleasantly repeated. But whereas Mr. William's light 
hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw 
his eyes up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for 
anything, the dark brown hair of Mrs. William was 
carefully smoothed down, and waved away, under a 
trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet manner imag- 
inable. Whereas Mr. William's very trousers hitched 
themselves up at the ankles, as if it were not in their 
iron-grey nature to rest without looking about them, 
Mrs. William's neatly-flowered skirts — red and white, 
like her own pretty face — were as composed and orderly 
as if the very wind that blew so hard out of doors could 
not disturb one of their folds. . Whereas his coat had 
something of a fly-away and half -off appearance about 
the collar and breast, her little bodice was so placid and 
neat, that there should have been protection for her,, 
in it, had she needed any, with the roughest people. Who 
could have had the heart to make so calm a bosom swell 
with grief, or throb with fear, or flutter with a thought 
of shame! To whom would its repose and peace have 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 329 

not appealed against disturbance, like the innocent 
slumber of a child! 

"Punctual, of course, Milly," said her husband, re- 
lieving her of the tray, "or it wouldn't be you. Here's 
Mrs. William, sir! — He looks lonelier than ever to-night," 
whispering to his wife, as he was taking the tray, " and 
ghostlier altogether." 

Without any show of hurry or noise, or any show of 
herself even, she was so calm and quiet, Milly set the 
dishes she had brought upon the table — Mr. William, 
after much clattering and running about, having only 
gained possession of a butter-boat of gravy, which he 
stood ready to serve. 

" What is that the old man has in his arms?" asked 
Mr. Redlaw, as he sat down to his solitary meal. 

" Holly, sir," replied the quiet voice of Milly. 

"That's what I say myself, sir," interposed Mr. Will- 
iam, striking in with the butter-boat. "Berries is so 
seasonable to the time of year! — Brown gravy!" 

"Another Christmas come, another year gone!" mur- 
mured the Chemist, with a gloomy sigh. "More figures 
in the lengthening sum of recollection that we work 
and work at to our torment, till death idly jumbles 
altogether, and rubs all out. So, Philip!" breaking off, 
and raising his voice as he addressed the old man stand- 
ing apart, with his glistening burden in his arms, from 
which the quiet Mrs. William took small branches, 
which she noiselessly trimmed with her scissors, and 
decorated the room with, while her aged father-in-law 
looked on much interested in the ceremony. 

" My duty to you, sir," returned the old man. " Should 
have spoke before, sir, but know your ways, Mr. Red- 
law — proud to say — and wait till spoke "to! Merry 
Christmas, sir, and happy New Year, and many of 
'em. Have had a pretty many of 'em myself — ha, ha! 
— and may take the liberty of wishing 'em. I'm eighty- 
seven!" 

" Have you had so many that were merry and happy?" 
asked the other. 

"Ay, sir, ever so many," returned the old man. 

"Is his memory impaired with age? It is to be ex- 
pected now," said Mr. Redlaw, turning to the son, and 
speaking lower. 

" Not a morsel of it, sir," replied Mr. William. " That's 



:0 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

exactly what I say myself, sir. There never was such a 
memory as my father's. He's the most wonderful man 
in the world. He don't know what forgetting means. 
It's the very observation I'm always making to Mrs. 
William, sir, if you'll believe me!" 

Mr. Swidger, in his polite desire to seem to acquiesce 
at all events, delivered this as if there were no iota of 
contradiction in it, and it were all said in unbounded and 
unqualified assent. 

The Chemist pushed his plate awaj r , and, rising from 
the table, walked across the room to where the old man 
stood looking at a little sprig of holly in his hand. 

"It recalls the time when many of those years were 
old and new, then?" he said, observing him attentively, 
and touching him on the shoulder. " Does it?" 

"Oh, many, many!" said Philip, half -awaking from 
his reverie. "I'm eighty-seven!" 

" Merry and happy, was it?" asked the Chemist, in a 
low voice. " Merry and happy, old man?" 

"May be as high as that, no higher," said the old 
man, holding out his hand a little way above the level 
of his knee, and looking retrospectively at his ques- 
tioner, "when I first remember 'em! Cold, sunshiny 
day it was, out a-walking, when some one — it was my 
mother as sure as you stand there, though I don't know 
what her blessed face was like, for she took ill and 
died that Christmas-time — told me they were food for 
birds. The pretty little fellow thought — that's me, 
you understand — that bird's eyes were so bright, per- 
haps, because the berries that they lived on in the 
winter were so bright. I recollect that. And I'm 
eighty-seven!" 

"Merry and happy!" mused the other, bending his 
dark eyes upon the stooping figure, with a smile of 
compassion. " Merry and happy — and remember 
well?" 

"Ay, ay, ay!" resumed the old man, catching the 
last words. " I remember 'em well in my school-time, 
year after year, and all the merry-making that used to 
come along with them. I was a strong chap then, Mr. 
Redlaw; and, if you'll believe me, hadn't my match 
at foot-ball within ten mile. Where's my son Will- 
iam? Hadn't my match at foot-ball, William, within 
ten mile!" 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 331 

" That's what I always say, father!" returned the son 
promptly, and with great respect. " You are a Swidger, 
if ever there was one of the family!" 

"Dear!" said the old man, shaking his head as he 
again looked at the holly. " His mother — my son Will- 
iam's my youngest son — and I, have set among 'em all, 
boys and girls, little children and babies, many a year, 
when the berries like these were not shining half so 
bright all round us, as their bright faces. Many of 'em 
are gone; she's gone; and my son George four eldest, who 
was her pride more than all the rest!) is iallen very low: 
but I can see them, when I look here, alive and healthy, 
as they used to be in those days; and I can see him, thank 
God, in his innocence. It's a blessed thing to me, at 
eighty-seven." 

The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so 
much earnestness, had gradually sought the ground. 

"When my circumstances got to be not so good as 
formerly, through not being honestly dealt by, and I 
first come here to be custodian," said the old man, " — 
which was upwards of fifty years ago — where's my son 
William? More than half a century ago, William!" 

"That's what I say, father," replied the son, as 
promptly and dutifully as before, "that's exactly where 
it is. Two times ought's an ought, and twice five ten, 
and there's a hundred of 'em." 

"It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our 
founders— or more correctly speaking," said the old man, 
with a great glory in his subject and his knowledge of 
it, " one of the learned gentlemen that helped endow us 
in Queen Elizabeth's time, for we were founded afore 
her day — left in his will, among the other bequests he 
made us, so much to buy holly for garnishing the walls 
and windows, come Christmas. There was something 
homely and friendly in it. Being but strange here, then, 
and coming at Christmas time, we took a liking for his 
very picter that hangs in what used to be, anciently, 
afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an annual 
stipend in money, our great Dinner Hall. A sedate 
gentleman in a peaked beard, with a ruff round his 
neck, and a scroll below him, in old English letters, 
'Lord! keep my memory green!' You know all about 
him, Mr. Redlaw?" 

"I know the portrait hangs there, Philip." 







332 THE HAUNTED MAN*. 

"Yes, sure, it's the second on the right, above the 
panelling. I was going to say — he has helped to keep 
my memory green, I thank him; for, going round the 
building every year, as I'm a doing now, and freshening 
up the bare rooms with these branches and berries, 
freshens up my bare old brain. One year brings back 
another, and that year another, and those others num- 
bers! At last, it seems to me as if the birth-time of our 
Lord was the birth-time of all I have ever had affection 
for, or mourned for, or delighted in — and they're a pretty 
many, for I'm eighty-seven!" 

" Merry and happy," murmured Redlaw to himself. 

The room began to darken strangely. 

"So you see, sir," pursued old Philip, whose hale, 
wintry cheek had warmed into a ruddier glow, and 
whose blue eyes had brightened while he spoke, " I have 
plenty to keep, when I keep this present season. Now, 
where's my quiet Mouse? Chattering's the sin of my 
time of life, and there's half the building to do yet, if the 
cold don't freeze us first, or the wind don't blow us 
away, or the darkness don't swallow us up." 

The quiet Mouse had brought her calm face to his side, 
and silently taken his arm, before he finished speaking. 

" Come away, my dear," said the old man. " Mr. Red- 
law won't settle to his dinner, otherwise, till it's cold as 
the winter. I hope you'll excuse me rambling on, sir, 
and I wish you good-night, and, once again, a merry — " 

"Stay!" said Mr. Redlaw, resuming his place at the 
table, more, it would have seemed from his manner, to 
reassure the old keeper, than in any remembrance of 
his own appetite. "Spare me another moment, Philip. 
William, you were going to tell me something to your 
excellent wife's honour. It will not be disagreeable to 
her to hear you praise her. What was it?" 

"Why, that's where it is, you see, sir," returned Mr. 
William Swidger, looking towards his wife in consider- 
able embarrassment. " Mrs. William's got her eye upon 
me." 

" But you're not afraid of Mrs. William's eye?" 

"Why, no, sir," returned Mr. Swidger, "that's what I 
say myself. It wasn't made to be afraid of. It wouldn't 
have been made so mild, if that was the intention. But 
I wouldn't like to — Milly! — him, you know. Down in 
the Buildings." 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 333 

Mr. William, standing behind the table, and rummag- 
ing disconcertedly among the objects upon it, directed 
persuasive glances at Mrs. William, and secret jerks of 
his head and thumb at Mr. Redlaw, as alluring her 
towards him. 

" Him, you know, my love," said Mr. William. u Down 
in the Buildings. Tell, my dear! You're the works of 
Shakspeare in comparison with myself. Down in the 
Buildings, you know, my love. Student." 

" Student!" repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head. 

"That's what I say, sir!" cried Mr. William, in the 
utmost animation of assent. "If it wasn't the poor 
student down in the Buildings, why should you wish to 
hear it from Mrs. William's lips? Mrs. William, my dear 
— Buildings." 

"I didn't know," said Milly, with a great frankness, 
free from any haste or confusion, "that William had 
said anything about it, or I wouldn't have come. I 
asked him not to. It's a sick young gentleman, sir — 
and very poor, I am afraid — who is too ill to go home 
this holiday -time, and lives, unknown to any one, in but 
a common kind of lodging for a gentleman, down in 
Jerusalem Buildings. That's all, sir." 

"Why have I never heard of him?" said the Chemist, 
rising hurriedly. " Why has he not made his situation 
known to me? Sick! — give me my hat and cloak. Poor! 
—what house? — what number?" 

"Oh, you mustn't go there, sir," said Milly, leaving 
her father-in-law, and calmly confronting him with her 
collected little face and folded hands. 

"Not go there?" 

"Oh, dear, no!" said Milly, shaking her head as at 
a most manifest and self-evident impossibility. "It 
couldn't be thought of!" 

" What do you mean? Why not?" 

"Why, you see, sir," said Mr. William Swidger, per- 
suasively and confidentially, "that's what I say. De- 
pend upon it, the young gentleman would never have 
made his situation known to one of his own sex. Mrs. 
William has got into his confidence, but that's quite 
different. They all confide in Mrs. William; they all 
trust her. A man, sir, couldn't have got a whisper out 
of him; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William combined — !" 

"There is good sense and delicacy in what you say, 







334 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

William," returned Mr. Redlaw, observant of the gentle 
and composed face at his shoulder. And laying his 
finger on his lip, he secretly put his purse into her hand. 

"Oh, dear no, sir!" cried Milly, giving it back again. 
" Worse and worse! Couldn't be dreamed of!" 

Such a staid matter-of-fact housewife she was, and so 
unruffled by the momentary haste of this rejection, that 
an instant afterwards, she was tidily picking up a few 
leaves which had strayed from behind her scissors and 
her apron, when she had arranged the holly. 

Finding, when she rose from her stooping posture, 
that Mr. Redlaw was still regarding her with doubt and 
astonishment, she quietly repeated — looking about, the 
while, for any other fragments that might have escaped 
her observation: 

"Oh, dear no, sir! He said that of all the world he 
would not be known to you, or receive help from you — 
though he is a student in your class. I have made no 
terms of secresy with you, but I trust to your honour 
completely." 

" Why did he say so?" 

"Indeed I can't tell, sir," said Milly, after thinking a 
little, "because I am not at all clever, you know; and I 
wanted to be useful to him in making things neat and 
comfortable about him, and employed myself that way. 
But I know he is poor, and lonely, and I think he is 
somehow neglected too. — How dark it is!" 

The room had darkened more and more. There was 
a very heavy gloom and shadow gathering behind the 
Chemist's chair. 

"What more kbout him?" he asked. 

" He is engaged to be married when he can afford it," 
said Milly, " and is studying, 1 think, to qualify himself 
to earn a living. I have seen, a long time, that he has 
studied hard and denied himself much. — How very dark 
it is!" 

"It's turned colder, too," said the old man, rubbing 
his hands. "There's a chill and dismal feeling in the 
room. Where's my son William? William, my boy, 
turn the lamp, and rouse the fire!" 

Milly's voice resumed, like quiet music very softly 
played: 

" He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon, 
after talking to me " (this was to herself ) "about some 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 33; 

one dead, and some great wrong done that could never 
be forgotten; but whether to him or to another person, 
I don't know. Not by him, I am sure." 

"And, in short, Mrs. William, you see — which she 
wouldn't say herself, Mr. Redlaw, if she was to stop 
here till the new year after this next one — " said Mr. 
William coming up to him to speak in his ear, "has 
done him worlds of good! Bless you, worlds of good! 
All at home just the same as ever — my father made as 
snug and comfortable — not a crumb of litter to be found 
in the house, if you were to offer fifty pound ready 
money for it — Mrs. William apparently never out of 
the way — yet Mrs. William backwards and forwards, 
backwards and forwards, up and down, up and down, 
a mother to him!" 

The room turned darker and colder, and the gloom 
and shadow gathering behind the chair was heavier. 

"Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William goes and 
finds, this very night, when she was coming home (why 
it's not above a couple of hours ago), a creature more 
like a young wild beast than a young child, shivering 
upon a door-step. What does Mrs. William do, but 
brings it home to dry it, and feed it, and keep it till our 
old Bounty of food and flannel is given away on Christ- 
mas morning! If it ever felt a fire before, it's as much 
as it ever did; for it's sitting in the old Lodge chimney, 
staring at ours as if its ravenous eyes would never shut 
again. It's sitting there, at least," said Mr. William, 
correcting himself , on reflection, "unless it's bolted!" 

" Heaven keep her happy!" said the Chemist aloud, 
"and you too, Philip! and you, William! I must con- 
sider what to do in this. I may desire to see this student. 
I'll not detain you longer now. Good-night!" 

" I thankee, sir, I thankee!" said the old man. "for 
Mouse, and for my son William, and for myself. Where's 
my son William? William, you take the lantern and go 
on first, through them long dark passages, as you did 
last year and the year afore. Ha, ha! I remember — 
though I'm eighty-seven! ' Lord keep my memory 
green!' It's a very good prayer, Mr. Redlaw, that of the 
learned gentleman in the peaked beard, with a ruff 
round his neck — hangs up, second on the right above the 
panelling, in what used to be, afore our ten poor gentle- 
men computed, ouc great Dinner Hall. ' Lord keep my 



336 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

memory green!' It's very good and pious, sir. Amen! 
Amen!" 

As they passed out and shut the heavy door, which, 
however carefully withheld, fired a long train of thun- 
dering reverberations when it shut at last, the room 
turned darker. 

As he fell a-musing in his chair alone, the healthy 
holly withered on the wall, and dropped — dead branches. 

As the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in 
that place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, 
by slow degrees — or out of it there came, by some unreal, 
unsubstantial process — not to be traced by any human 
sense, an awful likeness of himself. 

Ghastly and cold, colourless in its leaden face and 
hands, but with his features, and his bright eyes, and 
his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of 
his dress, it came into its terrible appearance of exist- 
ence, motionless, without a sound. As he leaned his 
arm upon the elbow of his chair, ruminating before the 
fire, it leaned upon the chair-back, close above him, with 
its appalling copy of his face looking where his face 
looked, and bearing the expression his face bore. 

This, then, was the Something that had passed and 
gone already. This was the dread companion of the 
haunted man! 

It took, for some moments, no more apparent heed of 
him than he of it. The Christmas Waits were playing 
somewhere in the distance, and, through his thoughtful- 
ness, he seemed to listen to the music. It seemed to 
listen too. 

At length he spoke; without moving or lifting up his 
face. 

" Here again!" he said. 

"Here again!" replied the Phantom. 

"I see you in the fire," said the haunted man; "I 
hear you in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of 
the night." 

The Phantom moved his head, assenting. 

" Why do you come, to haunt me thus?" 

" I come as I am called," replied the Ghost. 

" No. Unbidden," exclaimed the Chemist. 

" Unbidden be it," said the Spectre. " It is enough. I 
am here." 

Hitherto the light of the fire had shone on the two 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 337 

faces — if the dread lineaments behind the chair might 
be called a face — both addressed towards it, as at first, 
and neither looking at the other. But, now, the haunted 
man turned, suddenly, and stared upon the Ghost. The 
Ghost, as sudden in its motion, passed to before the 
chair, and stared on him. 

The living man, and the animated image of himself 
dead, might so have looked, the one upon the other. An 
awful survey, in a lonely and remote part of an empty 
old pile of building, on a winter night, with the loud 
wind going by upon its journey of mystery — whence, or 
whither, no man knowing since the world began — and 
the stars, in unimaginable millions, glittering through 
it, from eternal space, where the world's bulk is as a 
grain, and its hoary age is infancy. 

"Look upon me!" said the Spectre. "I am he, neg- 
lected in my youth, and miserably poor, who strove 
and suffered, and still strove and suffered, until I hewed 
out knowledge from the mine where it was buried, and 
made rugged steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and 
rise on." 

" I am that man," returned the Chemist. 

" No mother' s self -denying love," pursued the Phan- 
tom, "no father's counsel, aided me. A stranger came 
into my father's place when I was but a child, and I was 
easily an alien from my mother's heart. My parents, at 
the best, were of that sort whose care soon ends, and 
whose duty is soon done; who cast their off spring loose, 
early, as birds do theirs; and if they do well, claim the 
merit; and if ill, the pity." 

It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with 
its look, and with the manner of its speech, and with 
its smile. 

"I am he," pursued the Phantom, who, in this strug- 
gle upward, found a friend. I made him — won him — 
bound him to me! We worked together, side by side. 
All the love and confidence that in my earlier youth had 
had no outlet, and found no expression, I bestowed on 
him." 

" Not all," said Redlaw, hoarsely. 

"No, not all," returned the Phantom. "I had a 
sister." 

The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, 
replied, "I had!" The Phantom, with an evil smile, 

23 



338 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

drew closer to the chair, and resting its chin upon its 
folded hands, its folded hands upon the back, and look- 
down into his face with searching eyes, that seemed in- 
stinct with fire, went on: 

" Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever 
known had streamed from her. How young she was, 
how fair, how loving ! I took her to the first poor roof 
that I was master of, and made it rich. She came into 
the darkness of my life, and made it bright. — She is be- 
fore me!" 

" I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, 
in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night," returned 
the haunted man. 

"Did he love her?" said the Phantom, echoing his 
contemplative tone. " I think he did once. I am sure 
he did. Better had she loved him less — less secretly, 
less dearly, from the shallower depths of a more divided 
heart!" 

" Let me forget it," said the Chemist, with an angry 
motion of his hand. " Let me blot it from my memory." 

The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, 
cruel eyes still fixed upon his face, went on: 

" A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life." 

" It did," said Redlaw. 

"A love, as like hers," pursued the Phantom, " as my 
inferior nature might cherish, arose in my own heart. 
I was too poor to bind its object to my fortune then, 
by any thread of promise or entreaty. I loved her far 
too well to seek to do it. But, more than ever I had 
striven in my life, I strove to climb! Only an inch 
gained, brought me something nearer to the height. I 
toiled up! In the late pauses of my labour at that time 
— my sister (sweet companion!) still sharing with me 
the expiring embers and the cooling hearth — when 
day was breaking, what pictures of the future did I 
see ! " 

I saw them in the fire, but now," he murmured. 

They come back to me in music, in the wind, in the 
dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years." 

" — Pictures of my own domestic life, in after- time, 
with her who was the inspiration of my toil. Pictures 
of my sister, made the wife of my dear friend, on equal 
terms — for he had some inheritance, we none — pictures 
of our sobered age and mellowed happiness, and of the 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 339 

golden links, extending back so far, that should bind 
us, and our children, in a radiant garland," said the 
Phantom. 

"Pictures," said the haunted man, "that were delu- 
sions. Why is it my doom to remember them too well!" 

" Delusions," echoed the Phantom in its changeless 
voice, and glaring on him with its changeless eyes. 
" For my friend (in whose breast my confidence was 
locked as in my own), passing between me and the 
centre of the system of my hopes and struggles, won 
her to himself, and shattered my frail universe. My 
sister, doubly dear, doubly devoted, doubly cheerful in 
my home, lived on to see me famous, and my old ambi- 
tion so rewarded when its spring was broken, and 
then—" 

" Then died," he interposed. " Died, gentle as ever, 
happy, and with no concern but for her brother. Peace !" 

The Phantom watched him silently. 

" Remembered !" said the haunted man, after a pause. 
" Yes. So well remembered, that even now, when years 
have passed, and nothing is more idle or more visionary 
to me than the boyish love so long outlived, I think of it 
with sympathy, as if it were a younger brother's or a son's. 
Sometimes I even wonder when her heart first inclined 
to him, and how it had been affected towards me. 
Not lightly, once, I think. But that is nothing. Early 
unhappiness, a wound from a hand I loved and trusted, 
and a loss that nothing can replace, outlive such 
fancies." 

" Thus," said the Phantom, "I bear within me a sor- 
row and a wrong. Thus I prey upon myself. Thus, 
memory is my curse; and, if I could forget my sorrow 
and my wrong, I would!" 

" Mocker! " said the Chemist, leaping up, and making, 
with a wrathful hand, at the throat of his other self. 
" Why have I always that taunt in my ears?" 

"Forbear!" exclaimed the Spectre in an awful voice. 
" Lay a hand on me, and die!" 

He stopped midway, as if its words had paralysed 
him, and stood looking- on it. It had glided from him; 
it had its arm raised high in warning; and a smile 
passed over his unearthly features, as it reared its dark 
figure in triumph. 

" If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would/' 






340 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

the Ghost repeated. " If I could forget my sorrow and 
my wrong, I would!" 

" Evil spirit of myself," returned the haunted man, in 
a low, trembling tone, " my life is darkened by that in- 
cessant whisper." 

" It is an echo," said the Phantom. 

"If it be an echo of my thoughts— as now, indeed, I 
know it is," rejoined the haunted man, " why should I, 
therefore/be tormented? It is not a selfish thought. I 
suffer it to range beyond myself. All men and women 
have their sorrows — most of them their wrongs; in- 
gratitude, and sordid jealousy, and interest, besetting 
all degrees of life. Who would not forget their sorrows 
and their wrongs?" 

"Who would not, truly, and be the happier and bet- 
ter for it?" said the Phantom. 

" These revolutions of years, which we commemo- 
rate," proceeded Redlaw, "what do they recall! Are 
there any minds in which they do not reawaken some 
sorrow, or some trouble? What is the remembrance of 
the old man who was here to-night? A tissue of sorrow 
and trouble." 

" But common natures," said the Phantom, with its 
evil smile upon its glassy face, " unenlightened minds 
and ordinary spirits, do not feel or reason on these 
things like men of higher cultivation and profounder 
thought." 

"Tempter," answered Redlaw, "whose hollow look 
and voice 1 dread more than words can express, and 
from whom some dim foreshadowing of greater fear is 
stealing over me while I speak, I hear again an echo of 
my own mind." 

" Receive it as a proof that I am powerful," returned 
the Ghost. "Hear what I offer! Forget the sorrow, 
wrong, and trouble you have known!" 

"Forget them!" he repeated. 

" I have the power to cancel their remembrance — to 
leave but very faint, confused traces of them, that will 
die out soon," returned the Spectre. "Say! Is it 
done!" 

"Stay!" cried the haunted man, arresting by a terri- 
fied gesture the uplifted hand. "I tremble with distrust 
and doubt of you; and the dim fear you cast upon me 
deepens into a nameless horror I can hardly bear. I 



I 




THE HAUNTED MAN. 341 

would not deprive myself of any kindly recollection, or 
any sympathy that is good for me, or others. What 
shall I lose if I assent to this? What else will pass 
from my remembrance?" 

" No knowledge; no result of study; nothing but the 
intertwisted chain of feelings and associations, each in 
its turn dependent on, and nourished by, the banished 
recollections. Those will go." 

" Are they so many?" said the haunted man, reflect- 
ing in alarm. 

"They have been wont to show themselves in the 
fire, in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the 
night, in the revolving years," returned the Phantom 
scornfully. 

" In nothing else?" • 

The Phantom held its peace. 

But, having stood before him, silent, for a little while, 
it moved towards the fire; then stopped. 

" Decide!" it said*" before the opportunity is lost!" 

"A moment! I call Heaven to witness," said the 
agitated man, "that I have never been a hater of my 
kind — never morose, indifferent, or hard, to anything 
around me. If, living here alone, I have made too much 
of all that was and might have been, and too little of 
what is, the evil, I believe, has fallen on me, and not on 
others. But, if there were poison in my body, should I 
not, possessed of antidotes and knowledge how to use 
them, use them? If there be poison in my mind, and 
through this fearful shadow I can cast it out, shall I not 
cast it out?" 

"Say," said the Spectre, "is it done?" 

" A moment longer!" he answered hurriedly. "I would 
forget it if I could ! Have I thought that, alone, or has 
it been the thought of thousands upon thousands, gen- 
eration after generation? All human memory is fraught 
with sorrow and trouble. My memory is as the mem- 
ory of other men, but other men have not this choice. 
Yes, I close the bargain. Yes! I will forget my sorrow, 
wrong, and trouble!" 

" Say," said the Spectre, " is it done?" 

"It is!" 

" It is. And take this with you, man whom I here 
renounce! The gift that I have given, you shall give 
again, go where you will. Without recovering your- 



342 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

self the power that you have yielded up, you shall 
henceforth destroy its like in all whom you approach. 
Your wisdom has discovered that the memory of sor- 
row, wrong, and trouble is the lot of all mankind, and 
that mankind would be the happier, in its other mem- 
ories, without it. Go! Be its benefactor! Freed from 
such remembrance, from this hour, carry involuntarily 
the blessing of such freedom with you. Its diffusion is 
inseparable and inalienable from you. Go! Be happy 
in the good you have won, and the good you do!" 

The Phantom, which had held its bloodless hand above 
him while it spoke, as if in some unholy invocation, or 
some ban; and which had gradually advanced its eyes 
so close to his, that he could see how they did not par- 
ticipate in the terrible smile upon its face, but were a 
fixed, unalterable, steady horror; melted from before 
him'and was gone. 

As he stood rooted to the spot, possessed by fear and 
wonder, and imagining he heard repeated in melancholy 
echoes, dying away fainter and fainter, the words, " De- 
stroy its like in all whom you approach!" a shrill cry 
reached his ears. It came, not from the passages be- 
yond the door, but from another part of the old building, 
and sounded like the cry of some one in the dark who 
had lost the way. 

He looked confusedly upon his hands and limbs, as if 
to be assured of his identity, and then shouted in reply, 
loudly and wildly; for there was a strangeness and ter- 
ror upon him, as if he, too, were lost. 

The cry responding, and being nearer, he caught up 
the lamp, and raised a heavy curtain in the wall, by 
which he was accustomed to pass into and out of the 
theatre where he lectured — which adjoined his room. 
Associated with youth and animation, and a high 
amphitheatre of faces which his entrance charmed to in- 
terest in a moment, it was a ghostly place when all this 
life was faded out of it, and stared upon him like an em- 
blem of Death. 

"Halloa!" he cried. "Halloa! This way! Come to 
the light!" When, as he held the curtain with one hand, 
and with the other raised the lamp and tried to pierce 
the gloom that filled the place, something rushed past 
him into the room like a wild-cat, and couched down in 
a corner. 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 343 

"What is it?" he said, hastily. 

He might have asked " What is it?" even had he seen 
it well, as presently he did when he stood looking at it 
gathered up in its corner. 

A bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, in size 
and form almost an infant's, but, in its greedy, desperate 
little clutch, a bad old man's. A face rounded and 
smoothed by some half-dozen years, but pinched and 
twisted by the experiences of a life. Bright eyes, but 
not youthful. Naked feet, beautiful in their childish 
delicacy — ugly in the blood and dirt that cracked upon 
them. A ba-by savage, a young monster, a child who 
had never been a child, a creature who might live to 
take the outward form of man, but who, within, would 
live and perish a mere beast. 

Used, already, to be worried and hunted like a beast, 
the boy crouched down as he was looked at, and looked 
back again, and interposed his arm to ward off the ex- 
pected blow. 

" I'll bite," he said, " if you hit me!" 

The time had been, and not many minutes since, when 
such a sight as this would have wrung the Chemist's 
heart. He looked upon it now, coldly; but, with a heavy 
effort to remember something — he did not know what — 
he asked the boy what he did there, and whence he 
came. 

"Where's the woman?" he replied. "I want to find 
the woman." 

"Who?" 

" The woman. Her that brought me here, and set me 
by the large fire. She was so long gone, that I went to 
look for her, and lost myself. I don't want you. I want 
the woman." 

He made a spring, so suddenly, to get away, that the 
dull sound of his naked feet upon the floor was near the 
curtain, when Redlaw caught him by his rags. 

" Come! you let me go!" muttered the boy, struggling, 
and clenching his teeth. "I've done nothing to you. 
Let me go, will you, to the woman!" 

"That is not the way. There is a nearer one," said 
Redlaw, detaining him, in the same blank effort to re- 
member some association that ought of right, to bear 
upon this monstrous object. "What is your name?" 

"Got none." 






344 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

"Where do you live?" 

"Live! What's that?" 

The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at him 
for a moment, and then, twisting round his legs and 
wrestling with him, broke again into his repetition of 
"You let me go, will you? I want to find the woman." 

The Chemist led him to the door. "This way," he 
said, looking at him still confusedly, but with repug- 
nance and avoidance, growing out of his coldness. " 111 
take you to her." 

The sharp eyes in the child's head, wandering round 
the room, lighted on the table where the remnants of 
the dinner were. 

" Give me some of that!" he said covetously. 

"Has she not fed you?" 

"I shall be hungry again to-morrow, shan't I? Ain't 
I hungry every day?" 

Finding himself released, he bounded at the table like 
some small animal of prey, and hugging to his breast 
bread and meat, and his own rags, all together, said: 

"There! Now take me to the woman!" 

As the Chemist, with a new-born dislike to touch him, 
sternly motioned him to follow, and he was going out 
of the door, he trembled and stopped. 

" The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go 
where you will!" 

The Phantom's words were blowing in the wind, and 
the wind blew chill upon him. 

" I'll not go there, to-night" he murmured faintly. 

"I'll go nowhere to-night. Boy! straight down this 
long-arched passage, and past the great dark door into 
the yard — you will see the fire shining on a window 
there." 

" The woman's fire?" inquired the boy. 

He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away. He 
came back with his lamp, locked his door hastily, and 
sat down in his chair, covering his face like one who 
was frightened at himself. 

For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone. 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 345 



CHAPTER II. 

THE GIFT DIFFUSED. 

A small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned 
off from a shop by a small screen, pasted all over with 
small scraps of newspapers. In company with the 
small man, was almost any amount of small children 
you may please to name — at least, it seemed so— they 
made, in that very limited sphere of action, such an im- 
posing effect, in point of numbers. 

Of these small fry, two had, by some strong machin- 
ery, been got into bed in a corner, where they might 
have reposed snugly enough in the sleep of innocence, 
but for a constitutional propensity to keep awake, and 
also to scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate occa- 
sion of these predatory dashes at the waking world, was 
the construction of an oyster-shell wall in a corner, by 
two other youths of tender age; on which fortification 
the two in bed made harassing descents (like those 
accursed Picts and Scots who beleaguer the early histori- 
cal studies of most young Britons), and then withdrew 
to their own territory. 

In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and 
the retorts of the invaded, who pursued hotly and made 
lunges at the bedclothes, under which the marauders 
took refuge, another little boy, in another little bed, con- 
tributed his mite of confusion to the family stock, by 
casting his boots upon the waters; in other words, by 
launching these and several small objects, inoffensive 
in themselves, though of a hard substance considered as 
missiles, at the disturbers of his repose — who were not 
slow to return these compliments. 

Besides which, another little boy — the biggest there, 
but still little — was tottering to and fro, bent on one 
side, and considerably affected in his knees by the 
weight of a large baby, which he was supposed, by a 
fiction that obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to 
be hushing to sleep. Bx^t oh! the inexhaustible regions 
of contemplation and watchfulness into which this 






346 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

baby's eyes were then only beginning to compose them- 
selves to stare over his unconscious shoulder! 

It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate 
altar the whole existence of this particular young 
brother was offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality 
may be said to have consisted in its never being quiet, 
in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and 
never going to sleep when required. " Tetterby 's baby" 
was as well known in the neighbourhood as the postman 
or the pot-boy. It roved from door-step to door-step, in 
the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily 
at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the Tum- 
blers or the Monkey, and came up, all on one side, a little 
too late for everything that was attractive, from Mon- 
day morning until Saturday night. Wherever child- 
hood congregated to play, there was little Moloch making 
Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired to stay, 
little Moloch became fractious, and would not remain. 
Whenever Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was 
asleep and must be watched. Whenever Johnny 
wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must 
be taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it 
was a faultless baby, without its peer in the realm of 
England; and was quite content to catch meek glimpses 
of things in general from behind its skirts, or over its limp 
flapping bonnet, and to go staggering about with it like a 
very little porter with a very large parcel, which was 
not directed to anybody, and could never be delivered 
anywhere. 

The small man who sat in the small parlour, making 
fruitless attempts to read his newspaper peaceably in the 
midst of this disturbance, was the father of the family, 
and the chief of the firm described in the inscription 
over the little shop front, by the name and title of A. 
Tetterby and Co., Newsmen. Indeed, strictly speaking, 
he was the only personage answering to that designa- 
tion; as Co. was a mere poetical abstraction, altogether 
baseless and impersonal. 

Tetterby's was the corner shop in Jerusalem Build- 
ings. There was a good show of literature in the win- 
dow, chiefly consisting of picture-newspapers out of 
date, and serial pirates, and footpads. Walking-sticks, 
likewise, and marbles, were included in the stock in 
trade. It had once extended into the light confectionery 



I ' ■ 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 347 

line; but it would seem that those elegancies of life were 
not in demand about Jerusalem Buildings, for nothing 
connected with that branch of commerce remained in 
the window, except a sort of small glass lantern con- 
taining a languishing mass of bull's-eyes, which had 
melted in the summer and congealed in the winter until 
all hope of ever getting them out, or of eating them 
without eating the lantern too, was gone forever. Tet- 
terby's had tried its hand at several things. It had once 
made a feeble little dart at the toy business; for, in an- 
other lantern, there was a heap of minute wax dolls, all 
sticking together upside down, in the direst confusion, 
with their feet on one another's heads, and a precipitate 
of broken arms and legs at the bottom. It had made a 
move in the millinery direction, which a few dry, wiry 
bonnet-shapes remained in the corner of the window to 
attest. It had fancied that a living might lie hidden in 
the tobacco trade, and had stuck up a representation of 
a native of each of the three integral portions of the 
British empire, in the act of consuming that fragrant 
weed; with a poetic legend attached, importing that 
united in one cause they sat and joked, one chewed to- 
bacco, one took snuff, one smoked: but nothing seemed to 
have come of it — except flies. Time had been when it had 
put a forlorn trust in imitative jewellery, for in one pane 
of glass there was a card of cheap seals, and another of 
pencil-cases, and a mysterious black amulet of inscruta- 
ble intention labelled ninepence. But, to that hour, 
Jerusalem Buildings had bought none of them. In short, 
Tetterby's had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of 
Jerusalem Buildings in one way or other, and appeared 
to have done so indifferently in all, that the best posi- 
tion in the firm was too evidently Co.'s; Co., as a bodi- 
less creation, being untroubled with the vulgar incon- 
veninces of hunger and thirst, being chargeable neither 
to the poor-rates nor the assessed taxes, and having no 
young family to provide for. 

Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as al- 
ready mentioned, having the presence of a young family 
impressed upon his mind in a manner too clamourous to 
be disregarded, or to comport with the quiet perusal of 
a newspaper, laid down his paper, wheeled in his dis- 
traction, a few times round the parlour, like an undecided 
carrier-pigeon, made an ineffectual rush at one or two 



348 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

flying little figures in bed-gowns that skimmed past him, 
and then, bearing suddenly down upon the only un- 
offending member of the family, boxed the ears of little 
Moloch's nurse. 

" You bad boy!" said Mr. Tetterby, "haven't you any 
feeling for your poor father after the fatigues and anxi- 
eties of a hard winter's day, since five o'clock in the 
morning, but must you wither his rest, and corrode his 
latest intelligence, with your wicious tricks? Isn't it 
enough, sir, that your brother 'Dolphus is toiling and 
moiling in the fog and cold, and you rolling in the lap 
of luxury with a — with a baby, and everythink you can 
wish for," said Mr. Tetterby, heaping this up as a great 
climax of blessings, "but must you make a wilderness 
of home, and maniacs of your parents? Must you, 
Johnny? Hey?" At each interrogation, Mr. Tetterby 
made a feint of boxing his ears again, but thought bet- 
ter of it, and held his hand. 

"Oh, father!" whimpered Johnny, "when I wasn't 
doing anything, I'm sure, but taking such care of Sally, 
and getting her to sleep. Oh, father!" 

" I wish my little woman would come home!" said Mr. 
Tetterby, relenting and repenting, "I only wish my 
little woman would come home ! I ain't fit to deal with 'em. 
They make my head go round, and get the better of me! 
Oh, Johnny! Isn't it enough that your dear mother has 
provided you with that sweet sister?" indicating Moloch; 
"isn't it enough that you were seven boys before, with- 
out a ray of gal, and that your dear mother went 
through what she did go through,- on purpose that *you 
might all of you have a little sister, but must you so be- 
have yourself as to make my head swim?" 

Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings 
and those of his injured son were worked on, Mr. Tet- 
terby concluded by embracing him, and immediately 
breaking away to catch one of the real delinquents. A 
reasonably good start occurring, he succeeded, after a 
short but smart run, and some rather severe cross- 
country work under and over the bedsteads, and in and 
out among the intricacies of the chairs, in capturing 
this infant, whom he condignly punished, and bore to 
bed. This example had a powerful, and apparently, 
mesmeric influence on him of the boots, who instantly 
fell into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a moment 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 349 

before, broad awake, and in the highest possible feather. 
Nor was it lost upon the two young architects, who re- 
tired to bed, in an adjoining closet, with great privacy 
and speed. The comrade of the Intercepted One also 
shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, Mr. Tet- 
terby, when he paused for breath, found himself unex- 
pectedly in a scene of peace. 

"My little woman herself," said Mr. Tetterby, wiping 
his flushed face, "could hardly have done it better! I 
only wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed!" 

Mr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage ap- 
propriate to be impressed upon his children's minds on 
the occasion, and read the following. 

" ' It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men 
have had remarkable mothers, and have respected them 
in after life as their best friends.' Think of your own 
remarkable mother, my boys," said Mr. Tetterby, "and 
know her value while she is still among you!" 

He sat down again in his chair by the fire, and com- 
posed himself, cross-legged, over his newspaper. 

" Let anybody, I don't care who it is, get out of bed 
again," said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, deliv- 
ered in a very soft-hearted manner, " and astonishment 
will be the portion of that respected contemporary!" — 
which expression Mr. Tetterby selected from his screen. 
" Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, Sally; 
for she's the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your 
early brow." 

Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly 
crushed himself beneath the weight of Moloch. 

"Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny!" said 
his father, " and how thankful you ought to be! ' It is 
not generally known,' Johnny," he was now referring 
to the screen again, " ' but it is a fact ascertained by ac- 
curate calculations, that the following immense per- 
centage of babies never attain to two years old; that is 
to say ' " — 

"Oh, don't, father, please!" cried Johnny. "I can't 
bear it, when I think of Sally." 

Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profounder 
sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister. 

"Your brother 'Dolphus," said his father, poking the 
fire, "is late to-night, Johnny, and will come home like 
a lump of ice. What's got your precious mother?" 



350 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

" Here's mother, and 'Dolphus too, father!" exclaimed 
Johnny, "I think. " 

" You're right!" returned his father, listening. "Yes, 
that's the footstep of my little woman." 

The process of induction, by which Mr. Tetterby had 
come to the conclusion that his wife was a little woman, 
was his own secret. She would have made two editions 
of himself, very easily. Considered as an individual, 
she was rather remarkable for being robust and portly; 
but considered with reference to her husband, her dimen- 
sions became magnificent. Nor did they assume a less 
imposing proportion, when studied with reference to 
the size of her seven sons, who were but diminutive. 
In the case of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetterby had as- 
serted herself at last; as nobody knew better than the 
victim Johnny, who weighed and measured that exact- 
ing idol every hour in the day. 

Mrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried 
a basket, threw back her bonnet and shawl, and sitting 
down, fatigued, commanded Johnny to bring his sweet 
charge to her straightway, for a kiss. Johnny having 
complied, and gone back to his stool, and again crushed 
himself, Master Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this 
time unwound his Torso out of a prismatic comforter, 
apparently interminable, requested the same favour. 
Johnny having again complied, and again gone back to 
his stool, and again crushed himself, Mr. Tetterby, 
struck by a sudden thought, preferred the same claim 
on his own parental part. The satisfaction of this third 
desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had 
hardly breath enough left to get back to his stool, crush 
himself again, and pant at his relations. 

" Whatever you do, Johnny," said Mrs. Tetterby, 
shaking her head, "take care of her, or never look your 
mother in the face again." 

" Nor your brother," said Adolphus. 

" Nor your father, Johnny," said Mr. Tetterby. 

Johnny, much affected by this conditional renuncia- 
tion of him, looked down at Moloch's eyes to see that 
they were all right, so far, and skilfully patted her back 
(which was uppermost), and rocked her with his foot. 

"Are you wet, 'Dolphus, my boy," said his father. 
"Come and take my chair, and dry yourself." 

" No, father thankee," said Adolphus, smoothing him- 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 351 

self down with his hands. " I an't very wet, I don't 
think. Does my face shine much, father?" 

" Well, it does look waxy, my boy," returned Mr. Tet- 
terby. 

"It's the weather, father," said Adolphus, polishing 
his cheeks on the worn sleeve of his jacket. "What 
with rain, and sleet, and wind, and snow, and fog, my 
face gets quite brought out into a rash, sometimes. And 
shines, it does — oh, don't it, though!" 

Master Adolphus was also in the newspaper line of 
life, being employed, by a more thriving firm than his 
father and Co., to vend newspapers at a railway station, 
where his chubby little person, like a shabbily disguised 
Cupid, and his shrill little voice (he was not much more 
than ten years old), were as well known as the hoarse 
panting of the locomotives, running in and out. His 
juvenility might have been at some loss for a harmless 
outlet, in this early application to traffic, but for a for- 
tunate discovery he made of a means of entertaining 
himself, and of dividing the long day into stages of 
interest, without neglecting business. This ingenious 
invention, remarkable, like many great discoveries, for 
its simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel in the 
word "paper," and substituting in its stead, at different 
periods of the day, all the other vowels in grammatical 
succession. Thus, before daylight in the winter-time, 
he went to and fro, in his little oilskin cap and cape, 
and his big comforter, piercing the heavy air with his 
cry of " Morn-ing Pa-per!" which, about an hour before 
noon, changed to "Morn-ing Pep-per!" which, at about 
two, changed to " Morn-ing Pip-per!" which, in a couple 
of hours, changed to "Morn-ing Pop-per!" and so de- 
clined with the sun into " Eve-ning Pup-per!" to the 
great relief and comfort of this young gentleman's 
spirits. 

Mrs. Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been sitting 
with her bonnet and shawl thrown back, as aforesaid, 
thoughtfully turning her wedding-ring round and round 
upon her finger, now rose, and divesting herself of her 
out-of-door attire, began to lay the cloth for supper. 

"Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!" said Mrs. Tetterby. 
" That's the way the world goes!" 

" Which is the way the world goes, my dear?" asked 
Mr. Tetterby, looking round. 






352 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

" Oh, nothing/' said Mrs. Tetterby. 

Mr. Tetterby elevated his eyebrows, folded his news- 
paper afresh, and carried his eyes up it, and down it, 
and across it, but was wandering in his attention, and 
not reading it. 

Mrs. Tetterby, at the same time, laid the cloth, but 
rather as if she were punishing the table than preparing 
the family supper; hitting it unnecessarily hard with 
the knives and forks, slapping it with the plates, dinting 
it with the salt cellar, and coming heavily down upon it 
with the loaf. 

" Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!" said Mrs. Tetterby. 
"That's the way the world goes!" 

" My duck," returned her husband, looking round 
again, you said that before. Which is the way the world 
goes?" 

" Oh, nothing," said Mrs. Tetterby. 

"Sophia!" remonstrated her husband, "you said that 
before, too." 

"Well, I'll say it again if you like," returned Mrs. 
Tetterby. "Oh, nothing — there! And again if you 
like, oh, nothing — there! And again if you like, oh, 
nothing — now then !" 

Mr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner 
of his bosom, and said, in mild astonishment: 

"My little woman, what has put you out?" 

" Fm sure J don't know," she retorted. "Don't ask 
me. Who said I was put out at all? J never did." 

"Mr. Tetterby gave up the perusal of his newspaper 
as a bad job, and taking a slow walk across the room, 
with his hands behind him, and his shoulders raised — 
his gait according perfectly with the resignation of his 
manner — addressed himself to his two eldest offspring. 

" Your supper will be ready in a minute, 'Dolphus," 
said Mr. Tetterby. "Your mother has been out in the 
wet, to the cook's shop, to buy it. It was very good of 
your mother so to do. You shall get some supper, too, 
very soon, Johnny. Your mother's pleased with you, 
my" man, for being so attentive to your precious 
sister." 

Mrs. Tetterby, without any remark, but with a de- 
cided subsidence of her animosity towards the table, 
finished her preparations, and took, from her ample 
basket, a substantial slab of hot pease pudding wrapped 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 353 

in paper, and a basin covered with a saucer, which, on 
being uncovered, sent forth an odour so agreeable, that 
the three pair of eyes in the two beds opened wide 
and fixed themselves upon the banquet. Mr. Tetterby, 
without regarding this tacit invitation to be seated, 
stood repeating slowly, "Yes, yes, your supper will be 
ready in a minute, 'Dolphus — your mother went out in 
the wet, to the cook's shop, to buy it. It was very good 
of your mother so to do" — until Mrs. Tetterby, who had 
been exhibiting sundry tokens of contrition behind him, 
caught him round the neck, and wept. 

" Oh, 'Dolphus!" said Mrs. Tetterby, " how could I go 
and behave so!" 

This reconciliation affected Adolphus the younger and 
Johnny to that degree, that they both, as with one ac- 
cord, raised a dismal cry, which had the effect of imme- 
diately shutting up the round eyes in .the beds, and 
utterly routing the two remaining little Tetterbys, just 
then stealing in from the adjoining closet to see what 
was going on in the eating way. 

" I am sure, 'Dolphus," sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, "coming 
home, I had no more idea than a child unborn — " 

Mr. ^Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, 
and observed, " Say than the baby, my dear." 

" — Had no more idea than the baby," said Mrs. Tet- 
terby. "Johnny, don't look at me, but look at her, or 
she'll fall out of your lap and be killed, and then you'll 
die in agonies of a broken heart, and serve you right. — 
No more idea I hadn't than that darling, of being cross 
when I came home; but somehow, 'Dolphus — " Mrs. 
Tetterby paused, and again turned her wedding-ring 
round and round upon her finger. 

" I see!" said Mr. Tetterby. " I understand! My little 
woman was put out. Hard times and hard weather, and 
hard work, make it trying now and then. I see, bless 
your soul! No wonder! 'Dolf, my man," continued Mr. 
Tetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, " here's your 
mother been and bought, at the cook's shop, besides 
pease pudding, a whole knuckle of a lovely roast leg of 
pork, with lots of crackling left upon it, and with 
seasoning gravy and mustard quite unlimited. Hand in 
your plate, my boy, and begin while it's simmering." 

Master Adolphus, needing no second summons, re- 
ceived his portion with eyes rendered moist by appetite, 
24 



354 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

and withdrawing to his particular stool, fell upon his 
supper tooth and nail. Johnny was not forgotten, but 
received his rations on bread, lest he should, in a flush 
of gravy, trickle any on the baby. He was required, for 
similar reasons, to keep his pudding, when not on active 
service, in his pocket. 

There might have been more pork on the knucklebone 
— which knucklebone the carver at the cook's shop had 
assuredly not forgotten in carving for previous cus- 
tomers—but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is 
an accessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly 
cheating the sense of taste. The pease pudding, too, 
the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern rose in respect 
of the nightingale, if they were not absolutely pork, had 
lived near it; so, upon the whole, there was the flavour 
of a middle-sized pig. It was irresistible to the Tetter- 
bys in bed, who, though professing to slumber peace- 
fully, crawled out when unseen by their parents, and 
silently appealed to their brothers for any gastronomic 
token of fraternal affection. They, not hard of heart, 
presenting scraps in return, it resulted that a party of 
light skirmishers in night-gowns were careering about 
the parlour all through supper, which harrassed Mr. 
Tetterby exceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon 
him the necessity of a charge, before which these 
guerilla troops retired in all directions and in great 
confusion. 

Mrs. Tetterby did not enjoy her supper. There seemed 
to be something on Mrs. Tetterby's mind. At one time 
she laughed without reason, and at another time she 
cried without reason, and at last she laughed and cried 
together in a manner so very unreasonable that her hus- 
band was confounded. 

" My little woman," said Mr. Tetterby, " if the world 
goes that way, it appears to go the wrong way, and to 
choke you." 

"Give me a drop of water," said Mrs. Tetterby, strug- 
gling with herself, "and don't speak to me for the 
present, or take any notice of me. Don't do it!" 

Mr. Tetterby, having administered the water, turned 
suddenly on the unlucky Johnny (who was full of sym- 
pathy), and demanded why he was wallowing there, in 
gluttony and idleness, instead of coming forward with 
the baby, that the sight of her might revive his mother. 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 355 

Johnny immediately approached, borne down by its 
weight; but Mrs. Tetterby, holding out her hand to sig- 
nify that she was not in a condition to bear that trying 
appeal to her feelings, he was interdicted from advanc- 
ing another iuch, on pain of perpetual hatred from all 
his dearest connections; and accordingly he retired to 
his stool again, and crushed himself as before. 

After a pause, Mrs. Tetterby said she was better now, 
and began to laugh. 

"My little woman," said her husband, dubiously, "are 
you quite sure you're better? Or are you, Sophia, about 
to break out in a fresh direction?" 

" No, 'Dolphus, no," replied his wife. " Fm quite my- 
self." With that, settling her hair, and pressing the 
palms of her hands upon her eyes, she laughed again. 

" What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a mo- 
ment!" said Mrs. Tetterby. "Come nearer, 'Dolphus, 
and let me ease my mind, and tell you what I mean. 
Let me tell you all about it. " 

Mr. Tetterby, bringing his chair closer, Mrs. Tetter- 
by laughed again, gave him a hug, and wiped her eyes. 

"You know, 'Dolphus, my dear," said Mrs. Tetterby, 
"that when I was single, I might have given myself 
away in several directions. At one time, four after me 
at once; two of them were sons of Mars." 

" We're all sons of ma's, my dear," said Mr. Tetterby, 
"jointly with pa's." 

" I don't mean that," replied his wife; "I mean sol- 
diers — sergeants. " 

"Oh!" said Mr. Tetterby. 

" Well, 'Dolphus, I'm sure I never think of such things 
now, to regret them; and I'm sure I've got as good a hus- 
band, and would do as much to prove that I was fond of 
him, as — " 

"As any little woman in the world," said Mr. Tet- 
terby. "Very good. Very good." 

If Mr. Tetterby had been ten feet high, he could not 
have expressed a gentler consideration for Mrs. Tetter- 
by 's fairy-like stature; and if Mrs. Tetterby had been 
two feet high, she could not have felt it more appropri- 
ately her due. 

"But you see, 'Dolphus," said Mrs. Tetterby, "this 
being Christmas-time, when all people who can, make 
holiday, and when all people who have got money, like 






356 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

to spend some, I did, somehow, get a little out of sorts 
when I was in the streets just now. There were so many 
things to be sold — such delicious things to eat, such fine 
things to look at, such delightful things to have — and 
there was so much calculating and calculating neces- 
sary, before I durst lay out a sixpence for the commonest 
thing; and the basket was so large, and wanted so much 
in it; and my stock of money was so small, and would 
go such a little way; — you "hate me, don't you, 'Dol- 
phus?" 

"Not quite," said Mr. Tetterby, "as yet." 

" Well! I'll tell you the whole truth," pursued his wife, 
penitently, "and then perhaps you will. I felt all this, 
so much, when I was trudging about in the cold, and 
when I saw a lot of other calculating faces and large 
baskets trudging about, too, that I began to think 
whether I mightn't have done better, and been happier, 
if — I — hadn't — " the wedding ring went round again, 
and Mrs. Tetterby shook her downcast head as she 
turned it. 

"I see," said her husband quietly; "if you hadn't 
married at all, or if you had married somebody else?" 

" Yes," sobbed Mrs. Tetterby. " That's really what I 
thought. Do you hate me now, 'Dolphus?" 

" Why, no," said Mr. Tetterby, " I don't find that I do 
as yet." 

Mrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on. 

" I begin to hope you won't, now, 'Dolphus, though I 
am afraid I haven't told you the worst. I can't think 
what came over me. I don't know whether I was ill, 
or mad, or what I was, but I couldn't call up anything 
that seemed to bind us to each other, or to reconcile me 
to my fortune. All the pleasures and enjoyments we 
had ever had — they seemed so poor and insignificant, I 
hated them. I could have trodden on them. And I 
could think of nothing else except our being poor, and 
the number of mouths there were at home." 

" Well, well, my dear," said Mr. Tetterby, shaking 
her hand encouragingly, "that's truth, after all. We 
are poor, and there are a number of mouths at home 
here." 

"Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf," cried his wife, laying her 
hands upon his neck, " my good, kind, patient fellow, 
when I had been at home a very little while — how dif- 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 357 

ferent! Oh, Dolf, dear, how different it was! I felt as 
if there was a rush of recollection on me, all at once, 
that softened my hard heart, and filled it up till it was 
bursting. All our struggles for a livelihood, all our 
cares and wants since we have been married, all the 
times of sickness, all the hours of watching, we have 
ever had, by one another, or by the children, seemed 
to speak to me, and say that they had made us one, and 
that I never might have been, or could have been, or 
would have been, any other than the wife and mother 
I am. Then, the cheap enjoyments that I could have 
trodden on so cruelly, got to be so precious to me — oh, 
so priceless, and dear! — that I couldn't bear to think 
how much I had wronged them; and I said, and say 
again a hundred times, how could I ever behave so, 
'Dolphus, how could I ever have the heart to do it!" 

The good woman, quite carried away by her honest 
tenderness and remorse, was weeping with "all her heart, 
when she started up with a scream, and ran behind her 
husband. Her cry was so terrified, that the children 
started from their sleep and from their beds, and clung 
about her. Nor did her gaze belie her voice, as she 
pointed to a pale man in a black cloak who had come 
into the room. 

"Look at that man! Look there! What does he 
want?" 

" My dear," returned her husband, " I'll ask him if 
you'll let me go. What's the matter? How you shake!" 

" I saw him in the street when I was out just now. 
He looked at me, and stood near me. I am afraid of 
him." 

"Afraid of him! Why?" 

"I don't know why — I — stop! husband!" for he was 
going towards the stranger. 

She had one hand pressed upon her forehead, and one 
upon her breast; and there was a peculiar fluttering all 
over her, and a hurried, unsteady motion of her eyes, as 
if she had lost something. 

" Are you ill. my dear?" 

"What is it that is going from me again?" she 
muttered, in a low voice. u What is this that is going 
away?" 

Then she abruptly answered: "111? No, I am quite 
well," and stood looking vacantly at the floor. 






358 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

Her husband, who had not been altogether free from 
' the infection of her fear at first, and whom the present 
strangeness of her manner did not tend to reassure, 
addressed himself to the pale visitor in the black cloak, 
who stood still, and whose eyes were bent upon the 
ground. 

"What may be your pleasure, sir," he asked, "with 
us?" 

"I fear that my coming in unperceived," returned the 
visitor, "has alarmed you; but you were talking and 
did not hear me." 

" My little woman says — perhaps you heard her say 
it," returned Mr. Tetterby, "that it's not the first time 
you have alarmed her to-night." 

" I am sorry for it. I remember to have observed her, 
for a few moments only, in the street. I had no inten- 
tion of frightening her." 

As he raised his eyes in speaking, she raised hers. It 
was extraordinary to see what dread she had of him, 
and with what dread he observed it — and yet how 
narrowly and closely. 

"My name," he said, "is Redlaw. I come from the 
old college hard by. A young gentleman who is a stu- 
dent there, lodges in your house, does he not?" 

" Mr. Denham?" said Tetterby. 

"Yes." 

It was a natural action, and so slight as to be hardly 
noticeable; but the little man, before speaking again, 
passed his hand across his forehead, and looked quickly 
round the room, as though he were sensible of some 
change in its atmosphere. The Chemist, instantly 
transferring to him the look of dread he had directed 
towards the wife, stepped back, and his face turned 
paler. 

"The gentleman's room," said Tetterby, "is up- 
stairs, sir. There's a more convenient private entrance; 
but as you have come in here, it will save your going 
out into the cold, if you'll take this little staircase," 
showing one communicating directly with the parlor, 
" and go up to him that way, if you wish to see him." 

"Yes, I wish to see him," said the Chemist. "Can 
you spare a light?" 

The watchfulness of his haggard look, and the inex- 
plicable distrust that darkened it, seemed to trouble Mr. 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 359 

Tetterby. He paused; and looking fixedly at him in re- 
turn, stood for a minute or so, like a man stupefied, or 
fascinated. 

At length he said, "I'll light you, sir, if you'll follow 
me." 

"No," replied the Chemist, "I don't wish to be at- 
tended, or announced to him. He does not expect me. 
I would rather go alone. Please to give me the light, if 
you can spare it, and I'll find the way." 

In the quickness of his expression of this desire, and 
in taking the candle from the newsman, he touched him 
on the breast. Withdrawing his hand hastily, almost 
as though he had wounded him by accident (for he did 
not know in what part of himself his new power resided, 
or how it was communicated, or how the manner of its 
reception varied in different persons), he turned and 
ascended the stair. 

But when he reached the top, he stopped and looked 
down. The wife was standing in the same place, twist- 
ing her ring round and round upon her finger. The hus- 
band, with his head bent forward on his breast, was 
musing heavily and sullenly. The children, still cluster- 
ing about the mother, gazed timidly after the visitor, 
and nestled together when they saw him looking down. 

"Come!" said the father, roughly. "There's enough 
of this. Get to bed here!" 

"The place is inconvenient and small enough," the 
mother added, "without you. Get to bed!" 

The whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little 
Johnny and the baby lagging last. The mother, glanc- 
ing contemptuously round the sordid room, and tossing 
from her the fragments of their meal, stopped on the 
threshold of her task of clearing the table, and sat down, 
pondering idly and dejectedly. The father betook him- 
self to the chimney-corner, and impatiently raking the 
small fire together, bent over it as if he would monopo- 
lise it all. They did not interchange a word. 

The Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a 
thief; looking back upon the change below, and dread- 
ing equally to go on or return. 

" What have I done!" he said, confusedly. " What am 
I going to do !" 

"To be the benefactor of mankind," he thought he 
heard a voice reply. 







360 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

He looked round, but there was nothing there; and a 
passage now shutting out the little parlor from his view, 
he went on, directing his eyes before him at the way he 
went. 

"It is only since last night," he muttered gloomily, 
"that I have remained shut up, and yet all things are 
strange to me. I am strange to myself. I am here, as 
in a dream. What interest have I in this place, or in 
any place that I can bring to my remembrance? My 
mind is going blind!" 

There was a door before him, and he knocked at it. 
Being invited, by a voice within, to enter, he complied. 

"Is that my kind nurse?" said the voice. " But I need 
not ask her. There is no one else to come here." 

It spoke cheerfully, though in a languid tone, and at- 
tracted his attention to a young man lying on a couch, 
drawn before the chimney-piece, with the back towards 
the door. A meagre, scanty stove, pinched and hollowed 
like a sick man's cheeks, and bricked into the centre of 
a hearth that it could scarcely warm, contained the fire, 
to which his face was turned. Being so near the windy 
house-top, it wasted quickly, and with a busy sound, 
and the burning ashes dropped down fast. 

"They chink when they shoot out here," said the 
student, smiling, " so, according to the gossips, they are 
not coffins, but purses. I shall be well and rich yet, 
some day, if it please God, and shall live perhaps to love 
a daughter Milly, in remembrance of the kindest na- 
ture and the gentlest heart in the world." 

He put up his hand as if expecting her to take it, but, 
being weakened, he lay still, with his face resting on 
his other hand, and did not turn round. 

The Chemist glanced about the room;— at the student's 
books and papers, piled upon a table in a corner, where 
they, and his extinguished reading-lamp, now prohib- 
ited and put away, told of the attentive hours that had 
gone before this illness, and perhaps caused it;— at such 
signs of his old health and freedom, as the out-of-door 
attire that hung idle on the wall;— at those remem- 
brances of other and less solitary scenes, the little min- 
iatures upon the chimney-piece, and the drawing of 
home; — at that token of his emulation, perhaps, in some 
sort, of his personal attachment too, the framed engrav- 
ing of himself, the looker-on. The time had been, only 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 361 

yesterday, when not one of these objects, in its remotest 
association of interest with the living figure before him, 
would have been lost on Redlaw. Now, they were but 
objects; or, if any gleam of such connection shot upon 
him, it perplexed, and not enlightened him, as he stood 
looking round with a dull wonder. 

The student, recalling the thin hand which had re- 
mained so long untouched, raised himself on the couch, 
and turned his head. 

"Mr. Redlaw!" he exclaimed, and started up. 

Redlaw put out his arm. 

"Don't come near to me. I will sit here. Remain 
you, where you are!" 

He sat down on a chair near the door, and having 
glanced at the young man standing leaning with his 
hand upon the couch, spoke with his eyes averted to- 
wards the ground. 

" I heard, by an accident, by what accident is no mat- 
ter, that one of my class was ill and solitary. I received 
no other description of him, than that he lived in this 
street. Beginning my inquiries at the first house in it, 
I have found him." 

" I have been ill, sir," returned the student, not merely 
with a modest hesitation, but with a kind of awe of him, 
"but am greatly better. An attack of fever — of the 
brain, I believe — has weakened me, but I am much bet- 
ter. I cannot say I have been solitary in my illness, or 
I should forget the ministering hand that has been near 
me." 

" You are speaking of the keeper's wife," said Redlaw. 

" Yes." The student bent his head, as if he rendered 
her some silent homage. 

The Chemist, in whom there was a cold, monotonous 
apathy, which rendered him more like a marble image 
on the tomb of the man who had started from his dinner 
yesterday at the first mention of the student's case, 
than the breathing man himself, glanced again at the 
student leaning with his hand upon the couch, and 
looked upon the ground, and in the air, as if for light 
for his blinded mind. 

"I remembered your name," he said, "when it was 
mentioned to me down-stairs, just now; and I recollect 
your face. We have held but very little personal com- 
munication together?" 



362 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

"Very little." 

"You have retired and withdrawn from me, more 
than any of the rest, I think?" 

The student signified assent. 

"And why?" said the Chemist; not with the least 
expression of interest, but with a moody, wayward kind 
of curiosity. "Why? How comes it that you have 
sought to keep especially from me, the knowledge of 
your remaining here, at this season, when all the rest 
have dispersed, and of your being ill? I want to know 
why this is?" 

The young man, who had heard him with increasing 
agitation, raised his downcast eyes to his face, and 
clasping his hands together, cried with sudden earnest- 
ness, and with trembling lips: 

"Mr. Redlaw! You have discovered me. You know 
my secret!" 

"Secret?" said the Chemist, harshly, "/know. 

"Yes! Your manner, so different from the interest 
and sympathy which endear you to so many hearts, 
your altered voice, the constraint there is in everything 
you say, and in your looks," replied the student, "warn 
me that you know me. That you would conceal it, even 
now, is but a proof to me (God knows I need none!) of 
your natural kindness, and of the bar there is be- 
tween us." 

A vacant and contemptuous laugh was all his 
answer. 

"But, Mr. Redlaw," said the student, "as a just man, 
and a good man, think how innocent I am, except in 
name and descent, of participation in any wrong inflicted 
on you, or in any sorrow you have borne." 

"Sorrow!" said Redlaw, laughing. "Wrong! What 
are those to me?" 

"For Heaven's sake," entreated the shrinking student, 
"do not let the mere interchange of a few words with 
me change you like this, sir! Let me pass again from 
your knowledge and notice. Let me occupy my old 
reserved and distant place among those whom you in- 
struct. Know me only by the name I have assumed, 
and not by that of Longford — " 

"Longford!" exclaimed the other. 

He clasped his head with both his hands, and for a 
moment turned upon the young man his own intelligent 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 363 

and thoughtful face. But the light passed from it, 
like the sunbeam of an instant, and it clouded as 
before. 

"The name my mother bears, sir," faltered the young 
man, "the name she took, when she might, perhaps, 
have taken one more honoured. Mr. Redlaw," hesitat- 
ing, "I believe I know that history. Where my infor- 
mation halts, my guesses at what is wanting may 
supply something not remote from the truth. I am the 
child of a marriage that has not proved itself a well 
assorted or a happy one. From infancy, I have heard 
you spoken of with honour and respect — with something 
that was almost reverence. I have heard of such devo- 
tion, of such fortitude and tenderness, of such rising up 
against the obstacles which press men down, that my 
fancy, since I learned my little lesson from my mother, 
has shed a lustre on your name. At last, a poor student 
myself, from whom could I learn but you?" 

Redlaw, unmoved, unchanged, and looking at him 
with a staring frown, answered by no word or sign. 

"I cannot say," pursued the other, "I should try in 
vain to say, how much it has impressed me, and affected 
me, to find the gracious traces of the past, in that 
certain power of winning gratitude and confidence 
which is associated among us students (among the 
humblest of us, most) with Mr. Redlaw's generous 
name. Our ages and positions are so different, sir, and 
I am so accustomed to regard you from a distance, that 
I wonder at my own presumption when I touch, how- 
ever lightly, on that theme. But to one who — I may 
say, who felt no common interest in my mother once — 
it may be something to hear, now that is all past, with 
what indescribable feelings of affection I have, in my 
obscurity, regarded him; with what pain and reluctance 
I have kept aloof from his encouragement, when a word 
of it would have made me rich; yet how I have felt it fit 
that I should hold my course, content to know him, and 
to be unknown. Mr. Redlaw," said the student, faintly, 
" what I would have said, I have said ill, for my strength 
is strange to me as yet; but for anything unworthy in 
this fraud of mine, forgive me, and for all the rest for- 
get me!" 

The staring frown remained on Redlaw's face, and 
yielded to no other expression until the student, with 






364 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

these words, advanced towards him, as if to touch his 
hand, when he drew back and cried to him: 

"Don't come nearer to me!" 

The young man stopped, shocked by the eagerness of 
his recoil, and by the sternness of his repulsion; and he 
passed his hand, thoughtfully, across his forehead. 

" The past is past," said the Chemist. "It dies like 
the brutes. Who talks to me of its traces in my life? 
He raves or lies! What have I to do with your dis- 
tempered dreams? If you want money, here it is. I 
came to offer it; and that is all I came for. There can 
be nothing else that brings me here," he muttered, hold- 
ing his head again, with both his hands. "There can 
be nothing else, and yet — " 

He had tossed his purse upon the table. As he fell 
into this dim cogitation with himself, the student took 
it up, and held it out to him. 

"Take it back, sir," he said proudly, though not 
angrily. " I wish you could take from me, with it, the 
remembrance of your words and offer." 

"You do?" he retorted, with a wild light in his eye. 
"You do?" 

"I do!" 

The Chemist went close to him, for the first time, and 
took the purse, and turned him by the arm, and looked 
him in the face. 

"There is sorrow and trouble in sickness, is there 
not?" he demanded, with a laugh. 

The wondering student answered, "Yes." 

"In its unrest, in its anxiety, in its suspense, in all its 
train of physical and mental miseries?" said the Chemist, 
with a wild, unearthly exultation. " All best forgotten, 
are they not?" 

The student did not answer, but again passed his hand, 
confusedly, across his forehead. Redlaw still held him 
by the sleeve, when Milly's voice was heard outside. 

" I can see very well now," she said, " thank you, Dolf. 
Don't cry, dear. Father and mother will be comfortable 
again, to-morrow, and home will be comfortable too. A 
gentleman with him, is there!" 

Redlaw released his hold, as he listened. 

" I have feared, from the first moment," he murmured 
to himself, "to meet her. There is a steady quality of 
goodness in her, that I dread to influence. I may be 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 365 

the murderer of what is tenderest and best within her 
bosom." 

She was knocking at the door. 

" Shall I dismiss it as an idle foreboding, or still avoid 
her?" he muttered, looking uneasily around. 

She was knocking at the door again. 

" Of all the visitors who could come here/' he said, in 
a hoarse, alarmed voice, turning to his companion, "this 
is the one I should desire most to avoid. Hide me!" 

The student opened a frail door in the wall, communi- 
cating, where the garret roof began to slope towards the 
floor, with a small inner room. Redlaw passed in hastily, 
and shut it after him. 

The student then resumed his place upon the couch, 
and called to her to enter. 

" Dear Mr. Edmund," saidMilly, looking round, "they 
told me there was a gentleman here." 

" There is no one here but I." 

" There has been some one?" 

"Yes, yes, there has been some one." 

She put her little basket on the table, and went up to 
the back of the couch, as if to take the extended hand — 
but it was not there. A little surprised, in her quiet 
way, she leaned over to look at his face, and gently 
touched him on the brow. 

" Are you quite as well to-night? Your head is not so 
cool as in the afternoon." 

"Tut!" said the student, petulantly, "very little ails 
me." 

A little more surprise, but no reproach, was expressed 
in her face, as she withdrew to the other side of the table 
and took a small packet of needlework from her basket. 
But she laid it down again, on second thoughts, and 
going noiselessly about the room, set everything exactly 
in its place, and in the neatest order; even to the cush- 
ions on the couch, which she touched with so light a 
hand, that he hardly seemed to know it, as he lay look- 
ing at the fire. When all this was done, and she had 
swept the hearth, she sat down, in her modest little bon- 
net, to her work, and was quietly busy on it directly. 

" It's the new muslin curtain for the window, Mr. 
Edmund," said Milly, stitching away as she talked. "It 
will look very clean and nice, though it cost very little, 
and will save your eyes, too, from the light. Mr. Will- 






366 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

iam says the room should not be too light just now, 
when you are recovering so well, or the glare might 
make you giddy." 

He said nothing; but there was something so fretful 
and impatient in his change of position, that her quick 
fingers stopped, and she looked at him anxiously. 

" The pillows are not comfortable," she said, laying 
down her work and rising. " I will soon put them right." 

"They are very well," he answered. "Leave them 
alone, pray. You make so much of everything." 

He raised his head to say this, and looked at her so 
thanklessly, that, after he had thrown himself down 
again, she stood timidly pausing. However, she re- 
sumed her seat, and her needle, without having directed 
even a murmuring look towards him, and was soon as 
busy as before. 

" I have been thinking, Mr. Edmund, that you have 
been often thinking of late, when I have been sitting 
by, how true the saying is, that adversity is a good 
teacher. Health will be more precious to you, after this 
illness, than it has ever been. And years hence, when 
this time of year comes round, and you remember the 
days when you lay here sick, alone, that the knowledge 
of your illness might not afflict those who are dearest 
to you, your home will be doubly dear and doubly 
blessed. Now, isn't that a good true thing?" 

She was too intent upon her work, and too earnest in 
what she said, and too composed and quiet altogether, 
to be on the watch for any look he might direct towards 
her in reply; so the shaft of his ungrateful glance fell 
harmless, and did not wound her. 

" Ah!" said Milly, with her pretty head inclining 
thoughtfully on one side, as she looked down, following 
her busy fingers with her eyes. "Even on me — and I 
am very different from you, Mr. Edmund, for I have no 
learning, and don't know how to think properly — -this 
view of such things has made a great impression, since 
you have been lying ill. When I have seen you so 
touched by the kindness and attention of the poor people 
down-stairs, I have felt that you thought even that ex- 
perience some repayment for the loss of health, and I 
have read in your face, as plain as if it was a book, that 
but for some trouble and sorrow, we should never know 
half the good there is about us." 



THE HAUNTED MAN". 367 

His getting up from the couch interrupted her, or she 
was going on to say more. 

"We needn't magnify the merit, Mrs. William," he 
rejoined slightingly. "The people down-stairs will be 
paid in good time, I dare say, for any little extra 
service they may have rendered me; and perhaps 
they anticipate no less. I am much obliged to you, 
too." 

Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him. 

" I can't be made to feel the more obliged by your ex- 
aggerating the case," he said. " I am sensible that you 
have been interested in me, and I say I am much obliged 
to you. What more would you have?" 

Her work fell on her lap, as she still looked at him 
walking to and fro with an intolerant air, and stopping 
now and then. 

" I say again, I am much obliged to you. Why 
weaken my sense of what is your due in obligation, by 
preferring enormous claims upon me? Trouble, sorrow, 
affliction, adversity! One might suppose I had been 
dying a score of deaths here!" 

"Do you believe, Mr. Edmund," she asked, rising and 
going nearer to him, "that I spoke of the poor people 
of the house, with any reference to myself? To me?" 
laying her hand upon her bosom with a simple and in- 
nocent smile of astonishment. 

"Oh! I think nothing about it, my good creature," 
he returned. " I have had an indisposition, which your 
solicitude — observe! I say solicitude — makes a great 
deal more of than it merits; and it's over, and we can't 
perpetuate it." 

He coldly took a book, and sat down at the table. 

She watched him for a little while, until her smile 
was quite gone, and then, returning to where her basket 
was, said gently: 

" Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?" 

" There is no reason why I should detain you here," 
he replied. 

" Except — " said Milly, hesitating, and showing her 
work. 

"Oh! the curtain," he answered, with a supercilious 
laugh. " That's not worth staying for." 

She made up the little packet again, and put it in her 
basket. Then, standing before him with such an air of 






368 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

patient entreaty that he could not choose but look at 
her, she said: 

"If you should want me, I will come back willingly. 
When you did want me, I was quite happy to come; 
there was no merit in it. I think you must be afraid, 
that, now you are getting well, I may be troublesome 
to you; but I should not have been, indeed. I should 
have come no longer than your weakness and confine- 
ment lasted. You owe me nothing; but it is right that 
you should deal as justly by me as if I was a lady — 
even the very lady that you love; and if you suspect me 
of meanly making much of the little I have tried to do 
to comfort your sick room, you do yourself more wrong 
than ever you can do me. That is why I am sorry. 
That is why I am very sorry." 

If she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as in- 
dignant as she was calm, as angry in her look as she 
was gentle, as loud in her tone as she was low and clear, 
she might have left no sense of her departure in the 
room, compared with that which fell upon the lonely 
student when she went away. 

He was gazing drearily upon the place where she had 
been, when Redlaw came out of his concealment, and 
came to the door. 

" When sickness lays its hand on you again," he said, 
looking fiercely back at him, " — may it be soon! — Die 
here! Rot here!" 

"What have you done?" returned the other, catching 
at his cloak. " What change have you wrought in me? 
What curse have you brought upon me? Give me back 
myself!" 

"Give me back myself!" exclaimed Redlaw, like a 
madman. "I am infected! I am infectious! I am 
charged with poison for my own mind, and the minds 
of all mankind. Where I felt interest, compassion, 
sympathy, I am turning into stone. Selfishness and 
ingratitude spring up in my blighting footsteps. I am 
only so much less base than the wretches whom I make 
so, that in the moment of their transformation I can 
hate them." 

As he spoke — the j^oiing man still holding to his cloak 
— he cast him off, and struck him: then, wildly hurried 
out into the night air where the wind was blowing, the 
snow falling, the cloud-drift sweeping on, the moon 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 369 

dimly shining; and where, blowing in the wind, falling 
with the snow, drifting with the clouds, shining in the 
moonlight, and heavily looming in the darkness, were 
the Phantom's words, " The gift that I have given, you 
shall give again, go where you will!" 

Whither he went, he neither knew nor cared, so that 
he avoided company. The change he felt within him 
made the busy streets a desert, and himself a desert, 
and the multitude around him, in their manifold endur- 
ances and ways of life, a mighty waste of sand, which 
the winds tossed into unintelligible heaps and made a 
ruinous confusion of. Those traces in his breast which 
the Phantom had told him would "die out soon," were 
not, as yet, so far upon their way to death, but that he 
understood enough of what he was, and what he made 
of others, to desire to be alone. 

This put it in his mind — he suddenly bethought him- 
self, as he was going along, of the boy who had rushed 
into his room. And then he recollected, that of those 
with whom he had communicated since the Phantom's 
disappearance, that boy alone had shown no sign of 
being changed. 

Monstrous and odious as the wild thing was to him, 
he determined to seek it out, and prove if this were 
really so; and also to seek it with another intention, 
which came into his thoughts at the same time. 

So, resolving with some difficulty where he was, he 
directed his steps back to the old college, and to that 
part of it where the general porch was, and where, 
alone, the pavement was worn by the tread of the stu- 
dents' feet. 

The keeper's house stood just within the iron gates, 
forming a part of the chief quadrangle. There was a 
little cloister outside, and from that sheltered place he 
knew he could look in at the window of their ordinary 
room, and see who was within. The iron gates were 
shut, but his hand was familiar with the fastening, and 
drawing it back by thrusting in his wrist between the 
bars, he passed through softly, shut it again, and crept 
up to the window, crumbling the thin crust of snow 
with his feet. 

The fire, to which he had directed the boy last night, 
shining brightly through the glass, made an illuminated 
place upon the ground. Instinctively avoiding this, and 

25 



370 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

going round it, he looked in at the window. At first, he 
thought that there was no one there, and that the blaze 
was reddening only the old beams in the ceiling and 
the dark walls; but, peering in more narrowly, he saw 
the object of his search coiled asleep before it on the 
floor. He passed quickly to the door, opened it, and 
went in. 

The creature lay in such a fiery heat, that, as the 
Chemist stooped to rouse him, it scorched his head. So 
soon as he was touched, the boy, not half awake, 
clutched his rags together with the instinct of flight 
upon him, half rolled and half ran into a distant corner 
of the room, where, heaped upon the ground, he struck 
his feet out to defend himself. 

" Get up!" said the Chemist. " You have not forgot- 
ten me?" 

" You let me alone!" returned the boy. "This is the 
woman's house — not yours." 

The Chemist's steady eye controlled him somewhat, 
or inspired him with enough submission to be raised 
upon his feet, and looked at. 

" Who washed them, and put those bandages where 
they were bruised and cracked?" asked the Chemist, 
pointing to their altered state. 

" The woman did." 

" And is it she who has made you cleaner in the face, 
too?" 

"Yes, the woman." 

Redlaw asked these questions to attract his eyes 
towards himself, and with the same intent now held 
him by the chin, and threw his wild hair back, though 
he loathed to touch him. The boy watched his eyes 
keenly, as if he thought it needful to his own defence, 
not knowing what he might do next; and Redlaw could 
see well, that no change came over him. 

"Where are they?" he inquired. 

"The woman's out." 

" I know she is. Where is the old man with the white 
hair and his son?" 

"The woman's husband, d'ye mean?" inquired the 
boy. 

" Aye. Where are those two?" 

"Out. Something's the matter, somewhere. They 
were fetched out in a hurry, and told me to stop here."* 




REDLAW AND THE BOY. 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 371 

" Come with me," said the Chemist, " and I'll give you 
money." • 

" Come where? and how much will you give me?" 

"I'll give you more shillings than you ever saw, and 
bring you back soon. Do you know your way to where 
you came from?" 

"You let me go," returned the boy, suddenly twisting 
out of his grasp. " I'm not a going to take you there. 
Let me be, or I'll heave some fire at you!" 

He was down before it, and ready, with his savage 
little hand, to pluck the burning coals out. 

What the Chemist had felt, in observing the effect of 
his charmed influence stealing over those with whom he 
came in contact, was not nearly equal to the cold, vague 
terror with which he saw this baby-monster put it at 
defiance. It chilled his blood to look on the immovable, 
impenetrable thing, in the likeness of a child, with its 
sharp, rfralignant face turned up to his, and its almost 
infant hand, ready at the bars. 

''Listen, boy!" he said. "You shall take me where 
you please, so that you take me where the people are 
very miserable or very wicked. I want to do them good, 
and not to harm them. You shall have money, as I 
have told you. and I will bring you back. Get up ! Come 
quickly !" He made a hasty step towards the door, afraid 
of her returning. 

"Will you let me walk by myself, and never hold 
me, nor yet touch me?" said the boy, slowly withdraw- 
ing the hand with which he threatened, and beginning 
to get up. 

" I will!" 

"And let me go before, behind, or any ways I like?" 

"I will!" 

" Give me some money first, then, and I'll go." 

The Chemist laid a few shillings, one by one, in his 
extended hand. To count them was beyond the boy's 
knowledge, but he said "one," every time, and avari- 
ciously looked at each as it was given, and at the donor. 
He had nowhere to put them, out of his hand, but in his 
mouth; and hie put them there. 

Redlaw then wrote with his pencil on a leaf of his 
pocket-book, that the boy was with him; and laying it 
on the table, signed him to follow. Keeping his rags 
together, as usual, the boy complied, and went out 






372 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

with his bare head and his naked feet into the winter 
night. 

Preferring not to depart by the iron gate by which he 
had entered, where they were in danger of meeting her 
whom he so anxiously avoided, the Chemist, led the 
way, through some of those passages among which the 
boy had lost himself, and by that portion of the building 
where he lived, to a small door of which he had the key. 
When they got into the street, he stopped to ask his 
guide — who instantly retreated from him — if he knew 
where they were. 

The savage thing looked here and there; and at length, 
nodding his head, pointed in the direction he designed 
to take. Redlaw going on at once, he followed, some- 
what less suspiciously; shifting his money from his 
mouth into his hand, and back again into his mouth, 
and stealthily rubbing it bright upon his shreds of dress, 
as he went along. 

Three times in their progress, they were side by side. 
Three times they stopped, being side by side. Three 
times the Chemist glanced down at his face and shud- 
dered as it forced upon him one reflection. 

The first occasion was when they were crossing an old 
churchyard, and Redlaw stopped among the graves, 
utterly at a loss how to connect them with any tender, 
softening, or consolatory thought. 

The second was, when the breaking forth of the moon 
induced him to look up at the heavens, where he saw 
her in her glory, surrounded by a host of stars he still 
knew by the names and histories which human science 
has appended to them; but where he saw nothing else 
he had been wont to see, felt nothing he had been wont 
to feel, in looking up there, on a bright night. 

The third was when he stopped to listen to a plaintive 
strain of music, but could only hear a tune made mani- 
fest to him by the dry mechanism of the instruments 
and his own ears, with no address to any mystery 
within him, without a whisper in it of the past, or 
of the future, powerless upon him as the sound of last 
year's running water, or the rushing fcf last year's 
wind. 

At each of these three times, he saw with horror that 
in spite of the vast intellectual distance between them, 
and their being unlike each other in all physical re- 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 373 

spects, the expression on the boy's face was the expres- 
sion on his own. 

They journeyed on for some time — now through such 
crowded places, that he often looked over his shoulder, 
thinking he had lost his guide, but generally finding 
him within his shadow on his other side; now by ways 
so quiet, that he could have counted bis short, quick, 
naked footsteps coming on behind — until they arrived 
at a ruinous collection of houses, and the boy touched 
him and stopped. 

"In there!" he said, pointing out one house where 
there were scattered lights in the windows, and a dim 
lantern in the doorway, with " Lodgings for Travellers" 
painted on it. 

Redlaw looked about him; from the houses, to the waste 
piece of ground on which the houses stood, or rather did 
not altogether tumble down, unfenced, undrained, un- 
lighted, and bordered by a sluggish ditch; from that, to 
the sloping line of arches, part of some neighbouring 
viaduct or bridge with which it was surrounded, and 
which lessened gradually, towards them, until the last 
but one was a mere kennel for a dog, the last a plun- 
dered little heap of bricks; from that, to the child, close 
to him, cowering and trembling with the cold, and 
limping on one little foot, while he coiled the other 
round his leg to warm it, yet staring at all these things 
with that frightful likeness of expression so apparent in 
his face, that Redlaw started from him. 

" In there!" said the boy, pointing out the house again. 
M I'll wait." 

" Will they let me in?" asked Redlaw. 

"Say you're a doctor," he answered, with a nod. 
" There's plenty ill here." 

Looking back on his way to the house door, Redlaw 
saw him trail himself upon the dust and crawl within 
the shelter of the smallest arch, as if he were a rat. He 
had no pity for the thing, but he was afraid of it; and 
when it looked out of its den at him, he hurried to the 
house as a retreat. 

"Sorrow, wrong, and trouble," said the Chemist, 
with a painful effort at some more distinct remem- 
brance, "at least haunt this place, darkly. He can 
do no harm who brings forgetfulness of such things 
here!" 



374 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

With these words, he pushed the yielding door and 
went in. 

There was a woman sitting on the stairs, either asleep 
or forlorn, whose head was bent down on her hands and 
knees. As it was not easy to pass without treading on 
her, and as she was perfectly regardless of his ner/^ 
approach, he stopped and touched her on the should J >.. 
Looking up, she showed him quite a young face, but 
one whose bloom and promise were all swept away, 
as if the haggard winter should unnaturally kill the 
spring. 

With little or no show of concern on his account, 
she moved nearer to the wall to leave him a wider 
passage. 

" What are you?" said Redlaw, pausing, with his 
hand upon the broken stair-rail. 

"What do you think lam?" she answered, showing 
him her face again. 

He looked upon the ruined temple of God, so lately 
made, so soon disfigured, and something, which was 
not compassion — for the springs in which a true com- 
passion for such miseries has its rise were dried up in 
his breast — but which was nearer to it, for the mo- 
ment, than any feeling that had lately struggled into 
the darkening but not yet wholly darkened night of 
his mind — mingled a touch of softness with his next 
words. 

" I am come here to give relief, if I can," he said. 
" Are you thinking of any wrong?" 

She frowned at him, and then laughed, and then her 
laugh prolonged itself into a shivering sigh, as she 
dropped her head again, and hid her fingers in her hair. 

"Are you thinking of a wrong?" he asked, once 
more. 

" I am thinking of my life," she said, with a moment- 
ary look at him. 

He had a perception that she was one of many, and 
that he saw the type of thousands when he saw her 
drooping at his feet. 

" What are your parents?" he demanded. 

" I had a good home once. My father was a gardener, 
far away, in the country." 

"Is he dead?" 

"He's dead to me. All such things are dead to me. 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 375 

You, a gentleman, and not know that!" She raised her 
eyes again, and laughed at him. 

"Girl!" said Redlaw, sternly, "before this death of 
all such things was brought about, was there no wrong 
done to you? In spite of all that you can do, does no 
remembrance of wrong cleave to you? Are there not 
times upon times when it is misery to you?" 

So little of what was womanly was left in her appear- 
ance,, that now, when she burst into tears, he stood 
amazed. But he was more amazed, and much disquieted, 
to note that in her awakened recollection of this wrong, 
the first trace of her old humanity and frozen tender- 
ness appeared to show itself. 

He drew a little off, and in doing so, observed that 
her arms were black, her face cut, and her bosom 
bruised. 

"What brutal hand has hurt you so?" he asked. 

"My own. I did it myself!" she answered, quickly. 

"It is impossible." 

"I'll swear I did! He didn't touch me. I did it to 
myself in a passion, and threw myself down here. He 
wasn't near me. He never laid a hand upon me!" 

In the white determination of her face, confronting 
him with this untruth, he saw enough of the last per- 
version and distortion of good surviving in that miser- 
able breast, to be stricken with remorse that he had 
ever come near her. 

" Sorrow, wrong, and trouble!" he muttered, turning 
his fearful gaze away. " All that connects her with the 
state from which she has fallen, has those roots!" In 
the name of God, let me go by!" 

Afraid to look at her again, afraid to touch her, afraid 
to think of having sundered the last thread by which 
she held upon the mercy of Heaven, he gathered his 
cloak about him, and glided swiftly up the stairs. 

Opposite to him, on the landing, was a door, which 
stood partly open, and which, as he ascended, a man 
with a candle in his hand came forward from within to 
shut. But this man, on seeing him, drew back, with 
much emotion in his manner, and, as if by a sudden im- 
pulse, mentioned his name aloud. 

In the surprise of such a recognition there, he stopped, 
endeavouring to recollect the wan and startled face. 
He had no time to consider it, for, to his yet greater 



370 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

amazement, old Philip came out of the room, and took 
him by the hand. 

"Mr. Redlaw," said the old man, "this is like you, 
this is like you, sir! you have heard of it, and have 
come after us to render any help you can. Ah, too late, 
too late!" 

Redlaw, with a bewildered look, submitted to be led 
into the room. A man lay there, on a truckle-bed, and 
William Swidger stood at the bedside. 

"Too late!" murmured the old man, looking wist- 
fully into the Chemist's face; and the tears stole down 
his cheeks. 

" That's what I say, father," interposed his son in a 
low voice. " That's where it is, exactly. To keep as 
quiet as ever we can while he's a dozing, is the only 
thing to do. You're right, father!" 

Redlaw paused at the bedside, and looked down on the 
figure that was stretched upon the mattress. It was 
that of a man who should have been in the vigour of his 
life, but on whom it was not likely that the sun would 
ever shine again. The vices of his forty or fifty years' 
career had so branded him, that, in comparison with 
their effects upon his face, the heavy hand of time upon 
the old man's face who watched him had been merciful 
and beautifying. 

"Who is this?" asked the Chemist, looking round. 

"My son George, Mr. Redlaw," said the old man, 
wringing his hands. " My eldest son, George, who was 
more his mother's pride than all the rest!" 

Redlaw's eyes wandered from the old man's grey head 
as he laid it down upon the bed, to the person who had 
recognised him, and who had kept aloof, in the remotest 
corner of the room. He seemed to be about his own 
age; and although he knew no such hopeless decay and 
broken man as he appeared to be, there was something 
in the turn of his figure, as he stood with his back 
towards him, and now went out at the door, that made 
him pass his hand uneasily across his brow. 

"William," he said, in a gloomy whisper, "who is 
that man?" 

"Why, you see, sir," returned Mr. William, "that's 
what I say myself. Why should a man ever go and 
gamble, and the like of that, and let himself down inch 
by inch till he can't let himself down any lower!" 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 377 

" Has he done so?" asked Redlaw, glancing after him 
with the same uneasy action as before. 

" Just exactly that, sir/' returned William Swidger, 
"as I'm told. He knows a little about medicine, sir, it 
seems, and having been wayfaring towards London 
with my unhappy brother that you see here," Mr. Will- 
iam passed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, "and being 
lodging up-stairs for the night — what I say, you see, is 
that strange companions come together here sometimes 
— he looked in to attend upon him, and came for us at 
his request. What a mournful spectacle, sir! But 
that's where it is. It's enough to kill my father!" 

Redlaw looked up, at these words, and recalling where 
he was, and with whom, and the spell he carried with 
him — which his surprise had obscured — retired a little, 
hurriedly, debating with himself whether to shun the 
house that moment or remain. 

Yielding to a certain sullen doggedness, which it 
seemed to be part of his condition to struggle with, he 
argued for remaining. 

"Was it only yesterday," he said, "when I observed 
the memory of this old man to be a tissue of sorrow and 
trouble, and shall I be afraid to-night to shake it? Are 
such remembrances as I can drive away so precious to 
this dying man that I need fear for him? No, I'll stay 
here." 

But he stayed in fear and trembling none the less for 
these words; and, shrouded in his black cloak with his 
face turned from them, stood away from the bedside, 
listening to what they said, as if he felt himself a demon 
in the place. 

"Father!" murmured the sick man, rallying a little 
from his stupor. 

" My boy! My son George!" said old Philip. 

"You spoke, just now, of my being mother's favourite, 
long ago. It's a dreadful thing to think now, of long 
ago!" 

"No, no, no," returned the old man. "Think of it. 
Don't say it's dreadful. It's not dreadful to me, my 
son." 

" It cuts you to the heart, father." For the old man's 
tears were falling on him. 

"Yes, yes," said Philip, "so it does; but it does me 
good. It's a heavy sorrow to think of that time, but it 



378 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

does me good, George. Oh, think of it, too, think of it, 
too, and your heart will be softened more and more! 
Where's my son William? William, my boy, your 
mother loved him dearly to the last, and with her latest 
breath said, 4 Tell him I forgave him, blessed him, and 
prayed for him.' Those were her words to me. I have 
never forgotten them, and I'm eighty-seven!" 

"Father!" said the man upon the bed, "I am dying, I 
know. I am so far gone that I can hardly speak, even 
of what my mind most runs on. Is there any hope for 
me beyond this bed?" 

"There is hope," returned the old man, "for all who 
are softened and penitent. There is hope for all such. 
Oh!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands and looking up, 
" I was thankful, only yesterday, that I could remember 
this unhappy son when he was an innocent child. But 
what a comfort is it, now, to think that even God him- 
self has that remembrance of him!" 

Redlaw spread his hands upon his face and shrunk 
like a murderer. 

"Ah!" feebly moaned the man upon the bed. " The 
waste since then, the waste of life, since then!" 

"But he was a child once," said the old man. "He 
played with children. Before he lay down on his bed at 
night, and fell into his guiltless rest, he said his prayers 
at his poor mother's knee. I have seen him do it, many 
a time; and seen her lay his head upon her breast, and 
kiss him. Sorrowful as it was to her, and to me, to 
think of this, when he went so wrong, and when our 
hopes and plans for him were all broken, this gave him 
still a hold upon us, that nothing else could have given. 
Oh, Father, so much better than the fathers upon earth! 
Oh, Father, so much more afflicted by the errors of Thy 
children! take this wanderer back! Not as he is, but as 
he was then, let him cry to Thee, as he has so often 
seemed to cry to us!" 

As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son, 
for whom he made the supplication, laid his^ sinking 
head against him for support and comfort, as if he were 
indeed the child of whom he spoke. 

When did man ever tremble, as Redlaw trembled, in 
the silence that ensued! He knew it must come upon 
them, knew that it was coming fast. 

"My time is very short, my breath is shorter/' said 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 379 

the sick man, supporting himself on one arm, and with 
the other groping in the air, " and I remember there is 
something on my mind, concerning the man who was 
here just now. Father and William — wait! — is there 
really anything in black, out there?" 

" Yes, yes, it is real," said his aged father. 

" Is it a man?" 

" What I say myself, George," interposed his brother, 
bending kindly over him. " It's Mr. Redlaw." 

"I thought I had dreamed of him. Ask him to come 
here." 

The Chemist, whiter than the dying man, appeared 
before him. Obedient to the motion of his hand, he sat 
upon the bed. 

"It has been so ripped up to-night, sir," said the sick 
man, laying his hand upon his heart, with a look in 
which the mute, imploring agony of his condition was 
concentrated, "by the sight of my poor old father, and 
the thought of all the trouble I have been the cause of, 
and all the wrong and sorrow lying at my door, that—" 

Was it the extremity to which he had come, or was it 
the dawning of another change, that made him stop? 

" — that what I can do right, with my mind running 
on so much, so fast, I'll try to do. There was another 
man here. Did you see him?" 

Redlaw could not reply by any word; for when he 
saw that fatal sign he knew so well now, of the wan- 
dering hand upon the forehead, his voice died at his lips. 
But he made some indication of assent. 

"He is penniless, hungry, and destitute. He is com- 
pletely beaten down, and has no resource at all. Look 
after him! Lose no time! I know he has it in his mind 
to kill himself." 

It was working. It was on his face. His face was 
changing, hardening, deepening in all its shades, and 
losing all its sorrow. 

"Don't you remember! Don't you know him?" he 
pursued. 

He shut his face out for a moment, with the hand 
that again wandered over his forehead, and then it 
lowered on Redlaw, reckless, ruffianly and callous. 

"Why, d — n you!" he said, scowling round, "what 
have you been doing to me here! I have lived bold, and 
I mean to die bold. To the devil with you!" 



'■■ 






380 THE HAUNTED MAN. 






And so lay down upon his bed, and put his arms up, 
over his head and ears, as resolute from that time to 
keep out all access, and to die in his indifference. 

If Redlaw had been struck by lightning, it could not 
have struck him from the bedside with a more tremen- 
dous shock. But the old man, who had left the bed 
while his son was speaking to him, now returning, 
avoided it quickly likewise, and with abhorrence. 

"Where's my boy William?" said the old man, hur- 
riedly. "William, come away from here. We'll go 
home." 

"Home, father!" returned William. "Are you 
going to leave your own son?" 

"Where's my own son?" replied the old man. 

"Where? why, there!" 

" That's no son of mine," said Philip, trembling with 
resentment. "No such wretch as that has any claim 
on me. My children are pleasant to look at, and they 
wait upon me, and get my meat and drink ready, and 
are useful to me. I've a right to it! I'm eighty-seven!" 

" You're old enough to be no older," muttered William, 
looking at him grudgingly, with his hands in his pockets. 
" I don't know what good you are, myself. We could 
have a deal more pleasure without you." 

" My son, Mr. Redlaw!" said the old man. My son, 
too! The boy talking to me of my son! Why, what 
has he ever done to give me any pleasure, I should like 
to know?" 

" I don't know what you have ever done to give me 
any pleasure," said William, sulkily. 

" Let me think," said the old man. " For how many 
Christmas times running, have I sat in my warm place, 
and never had to come out in the cold night air; and 
have made good cheer, without being disturbed by any 
such uncomfortable, wretched sight as him there? Is it 
twenty, William?" ' 

" Mgher forty, it seems," he muttered. " Why, when 
I look at my father, sir, and come to think of it," ad- 
dressing Redlaw, with an impatience and irritation that 
were quite new, " I'm whipped if I can see anything in 
him but a calendar of ever so many years of eating, 
and drinking, and making himself comfortable, over 
and over again." 

" I — I'm eighty-seven," said the old man, rambling on, 



< 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 



381 



childishly, and weakly, "and I don't know as I ever 
was much put out by anything. I'm not a going to 
begin now, because of what he calls my son. He's not 
my son. I've had a power of pleasant times. I recol- 
lect once — no, I don't — no, it's broken off. It was some- 
thing about a game of cricket and a friend of mine, 
but it's somehow broken off. I wonder who he was — I 
suppose I liked him? And I wonder what became of 
him — I suppose he died? But I don't know. And I 
don't care, neither; I don't care a bit." 

In his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of his head, 
he put his hands into his waistcoat pockets. In one of 
them he found a bit of holly (left there, probably last 
night), which he now took out, and looked at. 

"Berries, eh?" said the old man. "Ah! It's a pity 
they are not good to eat. I recollect when I was a little 
chap, about as high as that, and out a walking with — 
let me see — who was I out a walking with? — no, I 
don't remember how that was. I don't remember as I 
ever walked with any one particular, or cared for any 
one, or any one for me. Berries, eh? There's good 
cheer when there's berries. Well; I ought to have my 
share of it, and to be waited on, and kept warm and 
comfortable; for I'm eighty-seven, and a poor old man. 
I'm eigh-ty-seven. Eigh-ty-seven!" 

The drivelling, pitiable manner in which, as he re- 
peated this, he nibbled at the leaves, and spat the mor- 
sels out; the cold, uninterested eye with which his 
youngest son (so changed) regarded him; the determined 
apathy with which his eldest son lay hardened in his 
sin; — impressed themselves no more on Redlaw's ob- 
servation; for he broke his way from the spot to which 
his feet seemed to have been fixed, and ran out of the 
house. 

His guide came crawling forth from his place of 
refuge, and was ready for him before he reached the 
arches. 

"Back to the woman's?" he inquired. 

"Back, quickly!" answered Redlaw. "Stop nowhere 
on the way!" 

For a short distance the boy went on before; but their 
return was more like a flight than a walk, and it was as 
much as his bare feet could do to keep pace with the 
Chemist's rapid strides. Shrinking from all who passed, 






382 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

shrouded in his cloak, and keeping it drawn closely 
about him, as though there were mortal contagion in 
any fluttering touch of his garments, he made no pause 
until they reached the door by which they had come out. 
He unlocked it with his key, went in, accompanied by 
the boy, and hastened through the dark passages to his 
own chamber. 

The boy watched him as he made the door fast, and 
withdrew behind the table when he looked round. 

' ' Come !" he said. ' ' Don't you touch me ! You've not 
brought me here to take my money away." 

Redlaw threw some more upon the ground. He flung 
his body on it immediately, as if to hide it from him, 
lest the sight of it should tempt him to reclaim it; and 
not until he saw him seated by his lamp, with his face 
hidden in his hands, began furtively to pick it up, 
When he had done so, he crept near the fire, and 
sitting down in a great chair before it, took from 
his breast some broken scraps of food, and fell to munch- 
ing, and to staring at the blaze, and now and then to 
glancing at his shillings, which he kept clenched up in 
a bunch, in one hand. 

"And this," said Redlaw, gazing on him with in- 
creasing repugnance and fear, " is the only one com- 
panion I have left on earth!" 

How long it was before he was aroused from his com- 
templation of this creature whom he dreaded so — 
whether half an hour, or half the night — he knew not. 
But the stillness of the room was broken by the boy 
(whom he had seen listening) starting up, and running 
towards the door. 

"Here's the woman coming!" he exclaimed. 

The Chemist stopped him on his way, at the moment 
when she knocked. 

" Let me go to her, will you?" said the boy. 

" Not now," returned the Chemist. " Stay here, No- 
body must pass in or out of the room now. Who's that?" 

"It's I, sir," cried Milly. "Pray, sir, let me in." 

" No! not for the world!" he said. 

"Mr. Redlaw, Mr. Redlaw, pray, sir, let me in." 

"What is the matter?" he said, holding the boy. 

" The miserable man you saw, is worse, and nothing 
I can say will wake him from his terrible infatuation. 
William's father has turned childish in a moment. Will- 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 383 

iam himself is changed. The shock has been too sudden 
for him; I cannot understand him; he is not like him- 
self. 0h ? Mr. Redlaw, pray advise me, help me !" 

"No! No! No!" he answered. 

"Mr. Redlaw! Dear sir! George has been muttering 
in his doze, about the man you saw there, who, he fears, 
will kill himself." 

"Better he should do it, than come near me!" 

" He says, in his wandering, that you know him; that 
he was your friend once, long ago; that he is the ruined 
father of a student here — my mind misgives me, of the 
young gentleman who has been ill. What is to be done? 
How is he to be followed? How is he to be saved? Mr. 
Redlaw, pray, oh, pray, advise me! Help me!" 

All this time he held the boy, who was half-mad to 
pass him, and let her in. 

"Phantoms! Punishers of impious thoughts!" cried 
Redlaw, gazing round in anguish, "Look upon me! 
From the darkness of my mind, let the glimmering of 
contrition that I know is there, shine up, and show my 
misery! In the material world, as I have long taught, 
nothing can be spared; no step or atom in the wondrous 
structure could be lost, without a blank being made in 
the great universe. I know, now, that it is the same 
with good and evil, happiness and sorrow, in the memo- 
ries of men. Pity me! Relieve me!" 

There was no response, but her " Help me, help me, 
let me in!" and the boy struggling to get to her. 

"Shadow of myself! Spirit of my darker hours!" 
cried Redlaw, in distraction, " come back, and haunt me 
day and night, but take this gift away ! Or, if it must 
still rest with me, deprive me of the dreadful power of 
giving it to others. Undo what I have done. Leave 
me benighted, but restore the day to those whom I have 
cursed. As I have spared this woman from the first, 
and as I never will go forth again, but will die here, 
with no hand to tend me, save this creature's who is 
proof against me — hear me!" 

The only reply still was, the boy struggling to get to 
her, while he held him back; and the cry increasing in 
its energy, " Help! let me in. He was your friend once, 
how shall he be followed, how shall he be saved? They 
are all changed, there is no one else to help me, pray, 
pray, let me in!" 






384 THE HAUNTED MAN 




CHAPTER III. 

THE GIFT REVERSED. 

Night was still heavy in the sky. On open plains, 
from hill-tops and from the decks of solitary ships at 
sea, a distant low-lying line, that promised by-and-by 
to change to light, was visible in the dim horizon; but 
its promise was remote and doubtful, and the moon was 
striving with the night clouds busily. 

The shadows upon Redlaw's mind succeeded thick 
and fast to one another, and obscured its light as the 
night clouds hovered between the moon and earth, and 
kept the latter veiled in darkness. Fitful and uncertain 
as the shadows which the night clouds cast, were their 
concealments from him, and imperfect revelations to 
him; and, like the night clouds still, if the clear light 
broke forth for a moment, it was only that they might 
sweep over it, and make the darkness deeper than 
before. 

Without there was a profound and solemn hush upon 
the ancient pile of building, and its buttresses and 
angles made dark shapes of mystery upon the ground, 
which now seemed to retire into the smooth white snow 
and now seemed to come out of it, as the moon's path 
was more or less beset. Within, the Chemist's room 
was indistinct and murky, by the light of the expiring 
lamp; a ghostly silence had succeeded to the knocking 
and the voice outside; nothing was audible, but, now 
and then, a low sound among the whitened ashes of the 
fire, as of its yielding up its last breath. Before it on 
the ground the boy lay fast asleep. In his chair, the 
Chemist sat, as he had sat there since the calling at his 
door had ceased — like a man turned to stone. 

At such a time, the Christmas music he had heard 
before, began to play. He listened to it at first, as he 
had listened in the churchyard; but presently — it play- 
ing still, and being borne towards him on the night air, 
in a low, sweet, melancholy strain — he rose, and stood 
stretching his hands about him, as if there were some 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 385 

friend approaching within his reach, on whom his deso- 
late touch might rest, yet do no harm. As he did this, 
his face became less fixed and wondering; a gentle 
trembling came upon him; and at last his eyes filled 
with tears, and he put his hands before them, and 
bowed down his head. 

His memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, had not 
come back to him; .he knew that it was not restored; he 
had no passing belief or hope that it was. But some 
dumb stir Within him made him capable, again, of being 
moved by what was hidden, afar off, in the music. If 
it were only that it told him sorrowfully the value of 
what he had lost, he thanked Heaven for it with a 
fervent gratitude. 

As the last chord died upon his ear, he raised his head 
to listen to its lingering vibration. Beyond the boy, so 
that his sleeping figure lay at his feet, the Phantom 
stood, immovable and silent, with its eyes upon him. 

Ghastly it was, as it had ever been, but not so cruel 
and relentless in its aspect — or he thought or hoped so, 
as he looked upon it, trembling. It was not alone, but 
in its shadowy hand it held another hand. 

And whose was that? Was the form that stood beside 
it indeed Milly's, or but her shade and picture! The 
quiet head was bent a little, as her manner was, and her 
eyes were looking down, as if in pity, on the sleeping 
child. A radiant light fell on her face, but did not 
touch the Phantom; for, though close beside her, it was 
dark and colourless as ever. 

"Spectre!" said the Chemist, newly troubled as he 
looked, "I have not been stubborn or presumptuous in 
respect of her. Oh, do not bring her here. Spare me 
that!" 

"This is but a shadow," said the Phantom; "when 
the morning shines, seek out the reality whose image I 
present before you." 

"Is it my inexorable doom to do so?" cried the 
Chemist. 

" It is," replied the Phantom. 

" To destroy her peace, her goodness; to make her 
what I am myself, and what I have made of others!" 

" I have said ' Seek her out,'" returned the Phantom. 
" I have said no more." 

"Oh, tell me," exclaimed Redlaw, catching at the 

26 



386 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

hope which he fancied might lie hidden in the words. 
" Can I undo what I have done?" 

" No/' returned the Phantom. 

" I do not ask for restoration to myself," said Redlaw. 
"What I abandoned, I abandoned of my own will, and 
have justly lost. But for those to whom I have trans- 
ferred the fatal gift; who never sought it; who un- 
knowingly received a curse of which they had no 
warning, and which they had no power to shun; can I 
do nothing?" 

" Nothing," said the Phantom. 

" If I cannot, can any one?" 

The Phantom, standing like a statue, kept its gaze 
upon him for a while; then turned its head suddenly, 
and looked upon the shadow at its side. 

"Ah! Can she?" cried Redlaw, still looking upon the 
shade. 

The Phantom released the r hand it had retained till 
now, and softly raised its own with a gesture of dis- 
missal. Upon that, her shadow, still preserving the 
same attitude, began to move or melt away. 

" Stay," cried Redlaw, with an earnestness to which 
he could not give enough expression. " For a moment! 
As an act of mercy! I know that some change fell upon 
me, when those sounds were in the air just now. Tell 
me, have I lost the power of harming her? May I go 
near her without dread? Oh, let her give me any sign 
of hope!" 

The Phantom looked upon the shade as he did — not at 
him — and gave no answer. 

"At least, say this — has she, henceforth, the con- 
sciousness of any power to set right what I have done?" 

" She has not," the Phantom answered. 

" Has she the power bestowed on her without the con- 
sciousness?" 

The Phantom answered: "Seek her out." And her 
shadow slowly vanished. 1 

They were face to face again, and looking on each 
other as intently and awfully as at the time of the be- 
stowal of the gift, across the boy who still lay on the 
ground between them, at the Phantom's feet. 

"Terrible instructor," said the Chemist, sinking on 
his knee before it in an attitude of supplication, " by 
whom I was renounced, but by whom I am revisited (in 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 387 

which, and in whose milder aspect, I would fain believe 
I have a gleam of hope), I will obey without inquiry, 
praying that the cry I have sent up in the anguish of my 
soul has been, or will be heard, in behalf of those whom 
I have injured beyond human reparation. But there is 
one thing — " 

" You speak to me of what is lying here," the Phantom 
interposed, and pointed with its finger to the boy. 

"I do," returned the Chemist. " You know what I 
would ask. Why has this child alone been proof 
against my influence, and why, why, have I detected in 
its thoughts a terrible companionship with mine?" 

"This," said the Phantom, pointing to the boy, "is 
the last, completest illustration of a human creature, 
utterly bereft of such remembrances a,s you have yielded 
up. No softening memory of sorrow, wrong, or trouble 
enters here, because this wretched mortal from his birth 
has been abandoned to a worse condition than the 
beasts, and has, within his knowledge, no one contrast, 
no humanising touch, to make a grain of such a memory 
spring up in his hardened breast. All within this desolate 
creature is barren wilderness. All within the man be- 
reft of what you have resigned, is the same barren 
wilderness. Woe to such a man! Woe, tenfold, to the 
nation that shall count its monsters such as this, lying 
here by hundreds and by thousands!" 

Redlaw shrunk, appalled, from what he heard. 

" There is not," said the Phantom, " one of these — not 
one — but sows a harvest that mankind must reap. Prom 
every seed of evil in this boy, a field of ruin is grown 
that shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and sown 
again in many places in the world, until regions are 
overspread with wickedness enough to raise the waters 
of another Deluge. Open and unpunished murder in a 
city's streets would be less guilty in its daily toleration 
than one such spectacle as this." 

It seemed to look down at the boy in his sleep. Red- 
law, too, looked down upon him with a new emotion. 

"There is not a father," said the Phantom, "by 
whose side in his daily or his nightly walk, these crea- 
tures pass; there is not a mother among all the ranks 
of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen 
from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible in 
his or her degree for this enormity. There is not a coun- 







388 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

try throughout the earth on which it would not bring a 
curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would 
not deny; there is no people upon earth it would not put 
to shame." 

The Chemist clasped his hands, and looked, with 
trembling fear and pity, from the sleeping boy to the 
Phantom, standing above him, with its finger pointing 
down. 

"Behold, I say," pursued the Spectre, "the perfect 
type of what it was your choice to be. Your influence 
is powerless here, because from this child's bosom you 
can banish nothing. His thoughts have been in ' terri- 
ble companionship ' with yours, because you have gone 
down to his unnatural level. He is the growth of man's 
indifference; you are the growth of man's presumption. 
The beneficent design of Heaven is, in each case, over- 
thrown, and from the two poles of the immaterial world 
you come together." 

The Chemist stooped upon the ground beside the boy, 
and with the same kind of compassion for him that he 
now felt for himself, covered him as he slept, and no 
longer shrunk from him with abhorrence or indiffer- 
ence. 

Soon, now, the distant line on the horizon brightened, 
the darkness faded, the sun rose red and glorious, and 
the chimney stacks and gables of the ancient building 
gleamed in the clear air, which turned the smoke and 
vapour of the city into a cloud of gold. The very sun- 
dial in his shady corner, where the wind was used to 
spin with such unwindy constancy, shook off the finer 
particles of snow that had accumulated on his dull old 
face in the night, and looked out at the little white 
wreaths, eddying round and round him. Doubtless some 
blind groping of the morning made its way down into 
the forgotten crypt so cold and earthy, where the Nor- 
man arches were half buried in the ground, and stirred 
the dull sap in the lazy vegetation hanging to the walls 
and quickened the slow principle of life within the little 
world of wonderful and delicate creation which existed 
there, with some faint knowledge that the sun was up. 

The Tetterbys were up and doing. Mr. Tetterby took 
down the shutters of the shop, and strip by strip revealed 
the treasures of the window to the eyes, so proof against 
their seductions, of Jerusalem Buildings. Adolphus had 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 389 

been out so long already, that he was halfway on to Morn- 
ing Pepper. Five small Tetterbys, whose ten round eyes 
were much inflamed by soap and friction, were in the tor- 
tures of a cool wash in the back kitchen; Mrs. Tetterby 
presiding. Johnny, who was pushed and hustled through 
his toilet with great rapidity when Moloch chanced to be 
in an exacting frame of mind (which was always the 
case), staggered up and down with his charge before the 
shop door under greater difficulties than usual; the weight 
of Moloch being much increased by a complication of 
defences against the cold, composed of knitted worsted- 
work, and forming a complete suit of chain-armour, 
with a head-piece and blue gaiters. 

It was a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting 
teeth. Whether they never came, or whether they 
came and went away again, is not in evidence; but it 
had certainly cut enough, on the showing of Mrs. Tet- 
terby, to make a handsome dental provision for the sign 
of the Bull and Mouth. All sorts of objects were im- 
pressed for the rubbing of its gums, notwithstanding 
that it always carried, dangling at its waist (which was 
immediately under its chin), a bone ring, large enough 
to have represented the rosary of a young nun. Knife- 
handles, umbrella-tops, the heads of walking-sticks se- 
lected from the stock, the fingers of the family in gen- 
eral, but especially of Johnny, nutmeg-graters, crusts, 
the handles of doors, and the cool knobs on the tops of 
pokers, were among the commonest instruments indis- 
criminately applied for this baby's relief. The amount 
of electricity that must have been rubbed out of it in a 
week, is not to be calculated. Still Mrs. Tetterby always 
said " It was coming through, and then the child would 
be herself;" and still it never did come through, and the 
child continued to be somebody else. 

The tempers of the little Tetterbys had sadly changed 
with a few hours. Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby themselves 
were not more altered than their offspring. Usually 
they were an unselfish, good-natured, yielding little 
race, sharing short-commons when it happened (which 
was pretty often) contentedly and even generously, and 
taking a great deal of enjoyment out of a very little 
meat. But they were fighting now, not only for the 
soap and water," but even for the breakfast which was 
yet in perspective. The hand of every little Tetterby 



390 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

was against the other little Tetterby s, and even Johnny's 
hand — the patient, much-enduring, and devoted Johnny 
— rose against the baby! Yes. Mrs. Tetterby, going to 
the door by a mere accident, saw him viciously pick out 
a weak place in the suit of armour, where a slap would 
tell, and slap that blessed child. 

Mrs. Tetterby had him into the parlor, by the collar, 
in that same flash of time, and repaid him the assault 
with usury thereto. 

"You brute, you murdering little boy!" said Mrs. Tet- 
terby. "Had you the heart to do it?" 

" Why don't her teeth come through, then," retorted 
Johnny, in a loud, rebellious voice, "instead of bother- 
ing me? How would you like it yourself?" 

" Like it, sir!" said Mrs. Tetterby, relieving him of his 
dishonoured load. 

" Yes, like it," said Johnny. " How would you? Not 
at all. If you was me, you'd go for a soldier. I will, 
too. There an't no babies in the army." 

Mr. Tetterby, who had arrived upon the scene of ac- 
tion, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, instead of correcting 
the rebel, and seemed rather struck by this view of a 
military life. 

" I wish I was in the army myself, if the child's in the 
right," said Mrs. Tetterby, looking at her husband, " for 
I have no peace of my life here. I'm a slave — a Vir- 
ginia slave;" some indistinct association with their weak 
descent on the tobacco trade perhaps suggested this ag- 
gravated expression to Mrs. Tetterby. " I never have a 
holiday, or any pleasure at all, from year's end to year's 
end! Why, Lord bless and save the child," said Mrs. 
Tetterby, shaking the baby with an irritability hardly 
suited to so pious an aspiration, "what's the matter 
with her, now?" 

Not being able to discover, and not rendering the sub- 
ject much clearer by shaking it, Mrs. Tetterby put the 
baby away in a cradle, and, folding her arms, sat rock- 
ing it angrily with her foot. 

"How you stand there, 'Dolphus!" said Mrs. Tetterby 
to her husband. "Why don't you do something?" 

''Because I don't care about doing anything," Mr. 
Tetterby replied. 

" I'm sure I don't," said Mrs. Tetterby. 

" I'll take my oath I don't," said Mr. Tetterby. . 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 391 

A diversion arose here among Johnny and his five 
younger brothers, who, in preparing the family break- 
fast table, had fallen to skirmishing for the temporary 
possession of the loaf, and were buffeting one another 
with great heartiness; the smallest boy of all, with pre- 
cocious discretion, hovering outside the knot of com- 
batants, and harassing their legs. Into the midst of 
this fray, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated them- 
selves with great ardour, as if such ground were the 
only ground on which they could now agree; and hav- 
ing, with no visible remains of their late soft-hearted- 
ness, laid about them without any lenity, and done 
much execution, resumed their former relative positions. 

"You had better read your paper than do nothing at 
all," said Mrs. Tetterby. 

"What's there to read in a paper?" returned Mr. 
Tetterby, with excessive discontent. 

" What?" said Mrs. Tetterby. " Police." 

" It's nothing to me," said Tetterby. " What do I care 
what people do, or are done to." 

"Suicides," suggested Mrs. Tetterby. 

" No business of mine," replied her husband. 

"Births, deaths, and marriages, are those nothing to 
you?" said Mrs. Tetterby. 

" If the births were all over for good, and all to-day; 
and the deaths were all to begin to come off to-morrow; 
I don't see why it should interest me, till I thought it 
was a-coming to my turn," grumbled Tetterby. "As 
to marriages, I've done it myself. I know quite enough 
about them." 

To judge from the dissatisfied expression of her face 
and manner, Mrs. Tetterby appeared to entertain the 
same opinions as her husband; but she opposed him, 
nevertheless, for the gratification of quarrelling with 
him. 

"Oh, you're a consistent man," said Mrs. Tetterby, 
" an't you? You, with the screen of your own making 
there, made of nothing else but bits of newspapers, 
which you sit and read to the children by the half-hour 
together !" 

" Say used to, if you please," returned her husband. 
" You won't find me doing so any more. I'm wiser now." 

" Bah ! wiser indeed !" said Mrs. Tetterby. "Are you 
better ?" 



392 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

The question sounded some discordant note in Mr. 
Tetterby's breast. He ruminated dejectedly, and passed 
his hand across and across his forehead. 

" Better !" murmured Mr. Tetterby. I don't know as 
any of us are better, or happier either. Better, is it?" 

He turned to the screen, and traced about it with his 
finger, until he found a certain paragraph of which he 
was in quest. 

" This used to be one of the family favourites, I re- 
collect," said Tetterby, in a forlorn and stupid way, 
" and used to draw tears from the children, and make 
? em good, if there was any little bickering or discontent 
among 'em, next to the story of the robin redbreasts in 
the wood. * Melancholy case of destitution. Yesterday 
a small man, with a baby in his arms, and surrounded 
by half-a-dozen ragged little ones, of various ages be- 
tween ten and two, the whole of whom were evidently 
in a famishing condition, appeared before the worthy 
magistrate, and made the following recital:' — Ha! I 
don't understand it, I'm sure," said Tetterby; " I don't 
see what it has got to do with us." 

"How old and shabby he looks," said Mrs. Tetterby, 
watching him. " I never saw such a change in a man. 
Ah! dear me, dear me, dear me, it was a sacrifice!" 

" What was a sacrifice?" her husband sourly inquired. 

Mrs. Tetterby shook her head; and without replying 
in words, raised a complete sea-storm about the baby, 
by her violent agitation of the cradle. 

" If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, my good 
woman — " said her husband. 

" I do mean it," said his wife. 

" Why, then I mean to say," pursued Mr. Tetterby, as 
sulkily and surlily as she, "that there are two sides to 
that affair; and that I was the sacrifice; and that I wish 
the sacrifice hadn't been accepted." 

" I wish it hadn't, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul, 
I do assure you," said his wife. "You can't wish it 
more than I do, Tetterby." 

" I don't know what I saw in her," muttered the news- 
man, " I'm sure; — certainly, if I saw anything, it's not 
there now. I was thinking so, last night, after supper, 
by the fire. She's fat, she's ageing, she won't bear com- 
parison with most other women." 

" He's common-looking, he has no air with him, he's 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 393 

small, he's beginning to stoop, and he's getting bald/' 
muttered Mrs. Tetterby. 

"I must have been half out of my mind when I did 
it," muttered Mr. Tetterby. 

"My senses must have forsook me. That's the only 
way in which I can explain it to myself," said Mrs. 
Tetterby, with elaboration. 

In this mood they sat down to breakfast.* The little 
Tetterbys were not habituated to regard that meal in 
the light of a sendentary occupation, but discussed it as 
a dance or trot; rather resembling a savage ceremony, 
in the occasional shrill whoops, and brandishings of 
bread and butter, with which it was accompanied, as 
well as in the intricate filings off into the street and 
back again, and the hoppings up and down the door- 
steps, which were incidental to the performance. In 
the present instance, the contentions between these 
Tetterby children for the milk-and-water jug, common to 
all, which stood upon the table, presented so lamentable 
an instance of angry passions risen very high indeed, 
that it was an outrage on the memory of Dr. Watts. It 
was not until Mr. Tetterby had driven the whole herd 
out of the front door, that a moment's peace was secured; 
and even that was broken by the discovery that 
Johnny had surreptitiously come back, and was at that 
instant choking in the jug like a ventriloquist, in his 
indecent and rapacious haste. 

" These children will be the death of me at last!" said 
Mrs. Tetterby, after banishing the culprit. "And the 
sooner the better, I think." 

" Poor people," said Mr. Tetterby, " ought not to have 
children at all. They give us no pleasure." 

He was at that moment taking up the cup which Mrs. 
Tetterby had rudely pushed towards him, and Mrs. Tet- 
terby was lifting her own cup to her lips, when they 
both stopped, as if they were transfixed. 

"Here! Mother! Father!" cried Johnny, running into 
the room. " Here's Mrs. William coming down the 
street!" 

And if ever, since the world began, a young boy took 
a baby from the cradle with the care of an old nurse, 
and hushed and soothed it tenderly, and trotted away 
with it cheerfully, Johnny was that boy, and Moloch 
was that baby, as they went out together. 







394 THE HAUNTED MAN 



Mr. Tetterby put down his cup; Mrs. Tetterby put 
down her cup. Mr. Tetterby rubbed his forehead; Mrs. 
Tetterby rubbed hers. Mr. Tetterby's face began to 
smooth and brighten; Mrs. Tetterby's began to smooth 
and brighten. 

"Why, Lord forgive me," said Mr. Tetterby to him- 
self, "what evil tempers have I been giving way to? 
What has been the matter here!" 

" How could I ever treat him ill again, after all I said 
and felt last night!" sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, with her 
apron to her eyes. 

"Am I a brute," said Mr. Tetterby, "or is there any 
good in me at all? Sophia! My little woman!" 

" 'Dolphus dear," returned his wife. 

" I — I've been in a state of mind," said Mr. Tetterby, 
"that I can't abear to think of, Sophy." 

"Oh! It's nothing to what I've been in, Dolf," cried 
his wife, in a great burst of grief. 

"My Sophia," said Mr. Tetterby, "don't take on. I 
never shall forgive myself. I must have nearly broke 
your heart, I know." 

" No, Dolf, no. It was me! Me!" cried Mrs. Tetterby. 

"My little woman," said her husband, "don't. You 
make me reproach myself dreadful, when you show 
such a noble spirit. Sophia, my dear, you don't know 
what I thought. I showed it bad enough, no doubt; but 
what I thought, my little woman!" — 

"Oh, dear Dolf, don't! Don't!" cried his wife. 

"Sophia," said Mr. Tetterby, "I must reveal it. I 
couldn't rest in my conscience unless I mentioned it. 
My little woman — " 

"Mrs. William's very nearly here!" screamed Johnny 
at the door. 

" My little woman, I wondered how," gasped Mr. Tet- 
terby, supporting himself by his chair, "I wondered 
how I had ever admired you — I forgot the precious chil- 
dren you have brought about me, and thought you didn't 
look as slim as I could wish. I — I never gave a recol- 
lection," said Mr. Tetterby, with severe self-accusation, 
"to the cares you've had as my wife, and along of me 
and mine, when you might have had hardly any with 
another man, who got on better and was luckier than 
me (anybody might have found such a man easily, I am 
sure); and I quarrelled with you for having aged a little 






THE HAUNTED MAN. 395 



in the rough years you've lightened for me. Can you 
believe it, my little woman? I hardly can myself." 

Mrs. Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing and crying, 
caught his face within her hands, and held it there. 

"Oh, Dolf!" she cried. "I am so happy that you 
thought so; I am so grateful that you thought so! For I 
thought that you were common-looking, Dolf; and so 
you are, my dear, and you may be the commonest of all 
sights in my eyes till you close them with your own good 
hands. I thought that you were small; and so you are, 
and I'll make much of you because you are, and more of 
you because I love my husband. I thought that you 
began to stoop; and so you do, and you shall lean on me, 
and I'll do all I can to keep you up. I thought there 
was no air about you; but there is, and it's the air of 
home, and that's the purest and the best there is, and 
God bless home once more, and all belonging to it, Dolf!" 

" Hurrah! Here's Mrs. William!" cried Johnny. 

So she was, and all the children with her; and as she 
came in, they kissed her, and kissed one another, and 
kissed the baby, and kissed their father and mother, and 
then ran back and flocked and danced about her, troop- 
ing on with her in triumph. 

Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby were not a bit behind-hand in 
the warmth of their reception. They were as much at- 
tracted to her as the children were; they ran towards 
her, kissed her hands, pressed round her, could not re- 
ceive her ardently or enthusiastically enough. She came 
among them like the spirit of all goodness, affection, 
gentle consideration, love, and domesticity. 

"What! are you all so glad to see me, too, this 
bright Christmas morning?" said Milly, clasping her 
hands in a pleasant wonder. " Oh, dear, how delightful 
this is!" 

More shouting from the children, more kissing, more 
trooping round her, more happiness, more love, more 
joy, more honour, on all sides, than she could bear. 

"Oh, dear!" said Milly, "what delicious tears you 
make me shed. How can I ever have deserved this! 
What have I done to be so loved!" 

"Who can help it!" cried Mr. Tetterby. 

"Who can help it!" cried Mrs. Tetterby. 

"Who can help it!" echoed the children, in a joyful 
chorus. And they danced and trooped about her again, 






396 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

and clung to her, and laid their rosy faces against her 
dress, and kissed and fondled it, and could not fondle 
it, or her, enough. 

" I never was so moved," said Milly, drying her eyes, 
" as I have been this morning. I must tell you, as 
soon as I can speak. Mr. Redlaw came to me at sun- 
rise, and with a tenderness in his manner, more as if I 
had been his darling daughter than myself, implored 
me to go with him to where William's brother George 
is lying ill. We went together, and all the way along 
he was so kind, and so subdued, and seemed to put such 
trust and hope in me, that I could not help crying with 
pleasure. When we got to the house we met a woman 
at the door (somebody had bruised and hurt her, I am 
afraid), who caught me by the hand, and blessed me as I 
passed." 

" She was right," said Mr. Tetterby. Mrs. Tetterby 
said she was right. All the children cried out she was 
right. 

" Ah, but there's more than that," said Milly. " When 
we got up-stairs, into the room, the sick man, who had 
lain for hours in a state from which no effort could 
rouse him, rose up in his bed, and, bursting into tears, 
stretched out his arms to me, and said that he had led 
a misspent life, but that he was truly repentant now, 
in his sorrow for the past, which was all as plain to him 
as a great prospect from which a dense black cloud had 
cleared away, and that he entreated me to ask his poor 
old father for his pardon and his blessing, and to say a 
prayer beside his bed. And when I did so, Mr. Redlaw 
joined in it so fervently, and then so thanked and 
thanked me, and thanked Heaven, that my heart quite 
overflowed, and I could have done nothing but sob and 
cry, if the sick man had not begged me to sit down by 
him — which made me quiet, of course. As I sat there, 
he held my hand in his until he sunk in a doze; and 
even then, when I withdrew my hand to leave him to 
come here (which Mr. Redlaw was very earnest indeed 
in wishing me to do), his hand felt for mine, so that 
some one else was obliged to take my place and make 
believe to give him my hand back. Oh, dear, oh, dear, 
said Milly, sobbing. " How thankful and how happy I 
should feel, and do feel, for all this!" 

While she was speaking, Redlaw had come in, and, 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 39? 

after pausing for a moment to observe the group of 
which she was the centre, had silently ascended the 
stairs. Upon those stairs he now appeared again; re- 
maining there, while the young student passed him, and 
came running down. 

" Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures," he said, 
falling on his knee to her, and catching at her hand, 
" forgive my cruel ingratitude!" 

" Oh, dear, oh, dear!" cried Milly, innocently, "here's 
another of them! Oh, dear, here's somebody else who 
likes me. What shall I ever do!" 

The guileless, simple way in which she said it, and 
in which she put her hands before her eyes and 
wept for very happiness, was as touching as it was 
delightful. 

" I was not myself," he said. "I don't know what it 
was — it was some consequence of my disorder, perhaps 
— I was mad. But I am so, no longer. Almost as I 
speak, I am restored. I heard the children crying out 
your name, and the shade passed from me at the very 
sound of it. Oh, don't weep! Dear Milly, if you could 
read my heart, and only know with what affection and 
what grateful homage it is glowing, you would not let 
me see you weep. It is such deep reproach." 

" No, no," said Milly, " it's not that. It's not indeed. 
It's joy. It's wonder that you should think it necessary 
to ask me to forgive so little, and yet it's pleasure that 
you do." 

"And will you come again? and will you finish the 
little curtain?" 

"No," said Milly, drying her eyes, and shaking her 
head. " You won't care for nyy needlework now." 

"Is it forgiving me, to say that?" 

She beckoned him aside, and whispered in his ear. 

" There is news from your home, Mr. Edmund." 

"News? How?" 

" Either your not writing when you were very ill, or 
the change in your handwriting when you began to be 
better, created some suspicion of the truth; however, that 
is — but you're sure you'll not be the worse for any news, 
if it's not bad news?" 

"Sure." 

"Then there's some one come!" said Milly. 

" My mother?" asked the student, glancing round in- 






398 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

voluntarily towards Redlaw, who had come down from 
the stairs. 

"Hush! No/' said Milly. 

" It can be no one else." 

" Indeed?" said Milly, "are you sure?" 

"It is not — " Before he could say more, she put her 
hand upon his mouth. 

"Yes, it is!" said Milly. "The young lady (she is 
very like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) 
was too unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, 
and came up, last night, with a little servant-maid. As 
you always dated your letters from the college, she came 
there; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, I saw 
her. She likes me, too!" said Milly. "Oh, dear, that's 
another!" 

" This morning! Where is she now?" 

"Why, she is now," said Milly, advancing her lips to 
his ear, "in my little parlour in the Lodge, and waiting 
to see you." 

He pressed her hand, and was darting off, but she 
detained him. 

" Mr. Redlaw is much altered, and has told me this 
morning that his memory is impaired. Be very con- 
siderate to him, Mr. Edmund; he needs that from 
us all." 

The young man assured her, by a look, that her cau- 
tion was not ill-bestowed; and as he passed the Chemist 
on his way out, bent respectfully and with an obvious 
interest before him. 

Redlaw returned the salutation courteously and even 
humbly, and looked after him as he passed on. He 
drooped his head upon his hand too, as trying to re- 
awaken something he had lost. But it was gone. 

The abiding change that had come upon him since the 
influence of the music, and the Phantom's reappearance, 
was, that now he truly felt how much he had lost, and 
could compassionate his own condition, and contrast it, 
clearly, with the natural state of those who were around 
him. In this, an interest in those who were around him 
was revived, and a meek, submissive sense of his calam- 
ity was bred, resembling that which sometimes obtains 
in age, when its mental powers are weakened, without 
insensibility or sullenness being added to the list of its 
infirmities. 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 399 

He was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly, 
more and more of the evil he had done, and as he was 
more and more with her, this change ripened itself within 
him. Therefore, and because of the attachment she in- 
spired him with (but without other hope), he felt that he 
was quite dependent on her, and that she was his staff 
in his affliction. 

So, when she asked him whether they should go home 
now, to where the old man and her husband were, and 
he readily replied " yes " — being anxious in that regard 
— he put his arm through hers, and walked beside her; 
not as if he were the wise and learned man to whom the 
wonders of nature were an open book, and hers were 
the uninstructed mind, but as if their two positions were 
reversed, and he knew nothing, and she all. 

He saw the children throng about her, and caress her, 
as he and she went away together thus, out of the house; 
he heard the ringing of their laughter, and their merry 
voices; he saw their bright faces, clustering round him 
like flowers; he witnessed the renewed contentment and 
affection of their parents; he breathed the simple air of 
their poor home, restored to its tranquillity, he thought 
of the unwholesome blight he had shed upon it, and 
might, but for her, have been diffusing then; and per- 
haps it is no wonder that he walked submissively beside 
her, and drew her gentle bosom nearer to his own. 

When they arrived at the Lodge, the old man was 
sitting in his chair in the chimney-corner, with his eyes 
fixed on the ground, and his son was leaning against 
the opposite side of the fireplace, looking at him. As 
she came in at the door, both started and turned round 
towards her, and a radiant change came upon their 
faces. 

" Oh, dear, dear, dear, they are pleased to see me like 
the rest!" cried Milly, clapping her hands in an ecstacy, 
and stopping short. " Here are two more!" 

Pleased to see her! Pleasure was no word for it. She 
ran into her husband's arms, thrown wide open to 
receive her, and he would have been glad to- have her 
there, with her head lying on his shoulder, through the 
short winter's day. But the old man couldn't spare her. 
He had arms for her too, and he locked her in them. 

"Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all this time?" 
said the old man. "She has been a long while away. 






400 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

I find that it's impossible for me to return without 
Mouse. I — where's my son William ? — fancy I have been 
dreaming, William." 

"That's what I say myself, father/' returned his son. 
"J have been in an ugly sort of dream, I think. How 
are you, father? Are you pretty well?" 

" Strong and brave, my boy," returned the old man. 

It was quite a sight to see Mr. William shaking hands 
with his father, and patting him on his back, and rub- 
bing him gently down with his hand, as if he could not 
possibly do enough to show an interest in him. 

" What a wonderful man you are, father! — How are 
you, father? Are you really pretty hearty, though?" 
said William, shaking hands with him again, and pat- 
ting him again, and rubbing him gently down again. 

" I never was fresher or stouter in my life, my boy." 

" What a wonderful man you are, father! But that's 
exactly where it is," said Mr. William, with enthusiasm. 
"When I think of all that my father's gone through, 
and all the chances and changes, and sorrows and 
troubles, that have happened to him in the course of his 
long life, and under which his head has grown grey, 
and years upon years have gathered on it, I feel as if 
we couldn't do enough to honour the old gentleman, and 
make his old age easy. How are you, father? Are you 
really pretty well, though?" 

Mr. William might never have left off repeating this 
inquiry and shaking hands with him again, and patting 
him again, and rubbing him down again, if the old man 
had not espied the Chemist, whom until now he had not 
seen. 

"I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw," said Philip, "but 
didn't know you were here, sir, or should have made 
less free. It reminder me, Mr. Redlaw, seeing you here 
on a Christmas morning, of the time when you was a 
student yourself, and worked so hard that you was 
backwards and forwards in our library even at Christ- 
mas time. Ha! ha! I'm old enough to remember that; 
and I remember it right well, I do, though I am eighty- 
seven. It was after you left here that my poor wife 
died. You remember my poor wife, Mr. Redlaw?" 

The Chemist answered yes. 

"Yes," said the old man. " She was a dear creetur. 
I recollect you come here one Christmas morning with 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 401 

a young lady — I ask your pardon, Mr. Redlaw, but I 
think it was a sister you was very much attached to?" 

The Chemist looked at him, and shook his head. . "I 
had a sister," he said, vacantly. He knew no more. 

" One Christmas morning," pursued the old man, 
"that you come here with her — and it began to snow, 
and my wife invited the young lady to walk in, and sit 
by the fire that is always a burning on Christmas day 
in what used to be, before our ten poor gentlemen com- 
muted, our great Dinner Hall. I was there; and I 
recollect, as I was stirring up the blaze for the young 
lady to warm her pretty feet by, she read the scroll out 
loud, that is underneath that picter. 'Lord keep my 
memory green!' She and my poor wife fell a talking 
about it; and it's a strange thing to think of, now, that 
they both said (both being so unlike to die) that it was 
a good prayer, and that it was one they would put up 
very earnestly, if they were called away young, with 
reference to those who were dearest to them. 'My 
brother/ says the young lady — ' My husband,' says my 
poor wife. ' Lord, keep his memory of me green, and 
do not let me be forgotten !' " 

Tears more painful, and more bitter than he had ever 
shed in all his life, coursed down Redlaw's face. Philip, 
fully occupied in recalling his story, had not observed 
him until now, nor Milly's anxiety that he should not 
proceed. 

" Philip!" said Redlaw, laying his hand upon his arm, 
" I am a stricken man, on whom the hand of Providence 
has fallen heavily, although deservedly. You speak to 
me, my friend, of what I cannot follow; my memory is 
gone." 

"Merciful Power!" cried the old man. 

"I have lost my memory of sorrow, wrong, and trou- 
ble," said the Chemist; "and with that I have lost all 
man would remember!" 

To see old Philip's pity for him, to see him wheel his 
own great chair for him to rest in, and look down upon 
him with a solemn sense of his bereavement, was to 
know in some degree how precious to old age such recol- 
lections are. 

The boy came running in, and ran to Milly. 

"Here's the man," he said, "in the other room. I 
don't want him" 
27 









402 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

" What man does he mean?" asked Mr. William. 

" Hush !" said Milly. 

Obedient to a sign from her, he and his old father 
softly withdrew. As they went out, unnoticed, Redlaw 
beckoned to the boy to come to him. 

" I like the woman best/' he answered, holding to her 
skirts. 

" You are right," said Redlaw, with a faint smile, 
" But you needn't fear to come to me. I am gentler than 
I was. Of all the world, to you, poor child!" 

The boy still held back at first; but yielding little by 
little to her urging, he consented to approach, and even 
to sit down at his feet. As Redlaw laid his hand upon 
the shoulder of the child, looking on him with compas- 
sion and a fellow-feeling, he put out his other hand to 
Milly. She stooped down on that side of him, so that she 
could look into his face; and after silence, said: 

"Mr. Redlaw, may I speak to you?" 

" Yes," he answered, fixing his eyes upon her. " Your 
voice and music are the same to me." 

" May I ask you something?" 

"What you will." 

" Do you remember what I said, when I knocked at 
your door last night? About one who was your friend 
once, and who stood on the verge of destruction ?" 

" Yes. I remember," he said with some hesitation. 

"Do you understand it?" 

He smoothed the boy's hair — looking at her fixedly the 
while, and shook his head. 

"This person," said Milly, in her clear, soft voice, 
which her mild eyes, looking at him, made clearer and 
softer, " I found soon afterwards. I went back to the 
house, and, with Heaven's help, traced him. I was not 
too soon. A very little, and I should have been too late." 

He took his hand from the boy, and laying it on the 
back of that hand of hers, whose timid and yet earnest 
touch addressed him no less appealingly than her voice 
and eyes, looked more intently on her. 

"He is the father of Mr. Edmund, the young gentleman 
we saw just now. His real name is Longford. You 
recollect the name?" 
• "I recollect the name." 

"And the man?" 
No, not the man. Did he ever wrong me?" 



a 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 403 

"Yes!" 

" Ah! Then it's hopeless— hopeless." 

He shook his head, and softly beat upon the hand he 
held, as though mutely asking her commiseration. 

" I did not go to Mr. Edmund last night/' said Milly.— 
" You will listen to me just the same as if you did re- 
member all?" 

"To every syllable you say." 

"Both, because I did not know, then, that this really 
was his father, and because I was fearful of the effect 
of such intelligence upon him, after his illness, if it 
should be. Since I have known who this person is, 1 
have not gone either; but that is for another reason. 
He has long been separated from his wife and son — has 
been a stranger to his home almost from his son's in- 
fancy, I learn from him — and has abandoned and deserted 
what he should have held most dear. In all that time, 
he has been falling from the state of a gentleman, more 
and more, until — " she rose up, hastily, and going out 
for a moment, returned, accompanied by the wreck that 
Redlaw had beheld last night. 

" Do you know me?" asked the Chemist. 

"I should be glad," returned the other, "and that is 
an unwonted word for me to use, if I could answer no." 

The Chemist looked at the man, standing in self-abase- 
ment and degradation before him, and would have 
looked longer, in an effectual struggle for enlighten- 
ment, but that Milly resumed her late position by his 
side, and attracted his attentive gaze to her own 
face. 

"See how low he is sunk, how lost he is!" she 
whispered, stretching out her arm towards him, with- 
out looking from the Chemist's face. " If you could 
remember all that is connected with him, do you not 
think it would move your pity to reflect that one you 
ever loved (do not let us mind how long ago, or in what 
belief that he has forfeited), should come to this?" 

" I hope it would," he answered. " I believe it would." 

His eyes wandered to the figure standing near the 
door, but came back speedily to her, on whom he gazed 
intently, as if he strove to learn some lesson from every 
tone of her voice, and every beam of her eyes. 

" I have no learning, and you have much," said Milly; 
" I am not used to think, and you are always thinking. 







404 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us 
to remember wrong that has been done us?" 

"Yes." 

" That we may forgive it." 

"Pardon me, great Heaven!" said Redlaw, lifting up 
his eyes, "for having thrown away thine own high at- 
tribute!" 

"And if," said Milly, "if your memory should one 
day be restored, as we will hope and pray it may be, 
would it not be a blessing to you to recall at once a 
wrong and its forgiveness?" 

1 He looked at the figure by the door, and fastened his 
attentive eyes on her again; a ray of clearer light ap- 
peared to him to shine into his mind, from her bright 
face. 

" He cannot go to his abandoned home. He does not 
seek to go there. He knows that he could only carry 
shame and trouble to those he has so cruelly neglected; 
and that the best reparation he can make them now, is 
to avoid them. Avery little money carefully bestowed, 
would remove him to some distant place, where he 
might live and do no wrong, and make such atonement 
as is left within his power for the wrong he has done. 
To the unfortunate lady who is his wife, and to his son, 
this would be the best and kindest boon that their best 
friend could give them — one, too, that they need never 
know of, and to him, shattered in reputation, mind, and 
body, it might be salvation." 

He took her head between his hands, and kissed it, 
and said: " It shall be done. I trust to you to do it for 
me, now and secretly; and to tell him that I would for- 
give him, if I were so happy as to know for what." 

As she rose, and turned her beaming face towards the 
fallen man, implying that her mediation had been suc- 
cessful, he advanced a step, and, without raising his 
eyes, addressed himself to Redlaw. 

"You are so generous," he said, " — you ever were — 
that you will try to banish j^our rising sense of retribu- 
tion in the spectacle that is before you. I do not try to 
banish it from myself, Redlaw. If you can, believe me." 

The Chemist entreated Milly, by a gesture, to come 
nearer to him; and, as he listened, looked in her face, 
as if to find in it the clue to what he heard. 

I am too decayed a wretch to make professions; I 



a 



THE HAUNTED MAN, 405 

recollect my own career too well to array any such before 
you. But from the day on which I made my first step 
downward, in dealing falsely by you, I have gone down 
with a certain, steady, doomed progression. That, I 
say." 

Redlaw, keeping her close at his side, turned his face 
towards the speaker, and there was sorrow in it. Some- 
thing like mournful recognition too. 

" I might have been another man, my life might have 
been another life, if I had avoided that first fatal step. 
I don't know that it would have been. I claim nothing 
for the possibility. Your sister is at rest, and better 
than she could have been with me, if I had continued 
even what you thought me: even what I once supposed 
myself to be." 

Redlaw made a hasty motion with his hand, as if he 
would have put that subject on one side. 

"I speak," the other went on, "like a man taken 
from the grave. I should have made my own grave, 
last night, had it not been for this blessed hand." 

"Oh, dear, he likes me,too!" sobbed Milly, under her 
breath. ' ' That's another !" 

"I could* not have put myself in your way, last night, 
even for bread. But, to-day, my recollection of what 
has been between us is so strongly stirred, and is pre- 
sented to me, I don't know how, so vividly, that I have 
dared to come at her suggestion, and to take your bounty, 
and to thank you for it, and to beg you, Redlaw, in your 
dying hour, to be as merciful to me in your thoughts, as 
you are in your deeds." 

He turned towards the door, and stopped a moment on 
his way forth. 

"I hope my son may interest you, for his mother's 
sake. I hope he may deserve to do so. Unless my life 
should be preserved a long time, and I should know that 
I have not misused your aid, I shall never look upon 
him more." 

Going out, he raised his eyes to Redlaw for the first 
time. Redlaw, whose steadfast gaze was fixed upon 
him, dreamily held out his hand. He returned and 
touched it — little more — with both his own — and bend- 
ing down his head, went slowly out. 

In the few moments that elapsed, while Milly silently 
took him to the gate, the Chemist dropped into his chair* 






406 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

and covered his face with his hands. Seeing him thus, 
when she came back, accompanied by her husband and 
his father (who were both greatly concerned for him), 
she avoided disturbing him, or permitting him to be dis- 
turbed; and kneeled down near the chair, to put some 
warm clothing on the boy. 

" That's exactly where it is. That's what I always 
say, father!" exclaimed her admiring husband. " There's 
a motherly feeling in Mrs. William's breast that must 
and will have went!" 

"Ay, ay," said the old man; "you're right. My son 
William's right!" 

"It happens all for the best, Milly, dear, no doubt," 
said Mr. William, tenderly, "that we have no children 
of our own; and yet I sometimes wish you had one to 
love and cherish. Our little dead child that you built 
such hopes upon, and that never breathed the breath of 
life — it has made you quiet-like, Milly." 

" I am very happy in the recollection of it, William, 
dear," she answered. " I think of it every day." 

" I was afraid you thought of it a good deal." 

" Don't say afraid; it is a comfort to me; it speaks to 
me in so many ways. The innocent thing \hat never 
lived on earth, is like an angel to me, William." 

" You are like an angel to father and me," said Mr. 
William, softly. " I know that." 

"When I think of all those hopes I built upon it, and 
the many times I sat and pictured to myself the little 
smiling face upon my bosom that never lay there, and 
the sweet eyes turned up to mine that never opened to 
the light," said Milly, "I can feel a greater tenderness, 
I think, for all the disappointed hopes in which there is 
no harm. When I see a beautiful child in its fond 
mother's arms, I love it all the better, thinking that my 
child might have been like that, and might have made 
my heart as proud and happy." 

Redlaw raised his head and looked towards her. 

"All through life it seems by me," she continued, "to 
tell me something. For poor, neglected children, my 
little child pleads as if it were alive, and had a voice I 
knew, with which to speak to me. When I hear of 
youth in suffering or shame, I think that my child might 
have come to that, perhaps, and that God took it from 
me in His mercy. Even in age and grey hair, such as 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 407 

father's, it is present: saying that it, too, might have 
lived to be old, long and long after you and I were gone, 
and to have needed the respect and love of younger 
people." 

Her quiet voice was quieter than ever, as she took her 
husband's arm, and laid her head against it. 

" Children love me so, that sometimes I half fancy — 
it's a silly fancy, William — they have some way I don't 
know of, of feeling for my little child, and me, and un- 
derstanding why their love is precious to me. If I have 
been quiet since, I have been more happy, William, in a 
hundred ways. Not least happy, dear, in this — that 
even when my little child was born and dead but a few 
days, and I was weak and sorrowful, and could not help 
grieving a little, the thought arose, that if I tried to lead 
a good life, I should meet in heaven a bright creature, 
who would call me Mother!" 

Redlaw fell upon his knees, with a loud cry. 

"Oh, Thou," he said, "who through the teaching of 
pure love, has graciously restored me to the memory 
which was the memory of Christ upon the cross, and of 
all the good who perished in His cause, receive my 
thanks, and bless her!" 

Then he folded her to his heart; and Milly, sobbing 
more than ever, cried, as she laughed, " He is come back 
to himself! He likes me very much, indeed, too? Oh, 
dear, dear, dear me, here's another!" 

Then, the student entered, leading by the hand a 
lovely girl, who was afraid to come. And Redlaw so 
changed towards him, seeing in him and in his youthful 
choice, the softened shadow of that chastening passage 
in his own life, to which, as to a shady tree, the dove so 
long imprisoned in his solitary ark might fly for rest 
and company, fell upon his neck, entreating them to be 
his children. 

Then, as Christmas is a time in which, of all times in 
the year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, 
and trouble in the world around us, should be active 
with us, not less than our own experiences, for all good, 
he laid his hand upon the boy, and, silently calling Him 
to witness who laid His hand on children in old time, 
rebuking in the majesty of His prophetic knowledge those 
who kept them from Him, vowed to protect him, teach 
him, and reclaim him. 



408 THE HAUNTED MAN. 

Then, he gave his right hand cheerily to Philip, and 
said that they would that day hold a Christmas dinner 
in what used to be, before the ten poor gentlemen com- 
muted, their great Dinner Hall; and that they would 
bid to it as many of that Swidger family, who, his son 
had told him, were so numerous that they might join 
hands and make a ring round England, as could be 
brought together on so short a notice. 

And it was that day done. There were so many 
Swidgers there, grown up and children, that an attempt 
to state them in round numbers might engender doubts, 
in the distrustful, of the veracity of this history. There- 
fore the attempt shall not be made. But, there they 
were, by dozens and scores — and there was good news 
and good hope there, ready for them, of George, who 
had been visited again by his father and brother, and by 
Milly, and again left in a quiet sleep. There, present at 
the dinner, too, were the Tatterbys, including young 
Adolphus, who arrived in his prismatic comforter, in 
good time for the beef. Johnny and the baby were too 
late, of course, and came in all on one side, the one 
exhausted, the other in a supposed state of double-tooth; 
but that was customary, and not alarming. 

It was sad to see the child who had no name or lineage, 
watching the other children as they played, not know- 
ing how to talk with them, or sport with them, and more 
strange to the ways of childhood than a rough dog. It 
was sad, though in a different way, to see what an in- 
stinctive knowledge the youngest children there had of 
his being different from all the rest, and how they made 
timid approaches to him with soft words and touches, 
and with little presents, that he might not be unhappy. 
But he kept by Milly, and began to love her — that was 
another, as she said! — and, as they all liked her dearly, 
they were glad of that, and when they saw him peeping 
at them from behind her chair, they were pleased that 
he was so close to it. 

All this, the Chemist, sitting with the student and 
his bride that was to be, and Philip, and the rest, 
saw. 

Some people have said since, that he only thought 
what has been herein set down; others, that he read it 
in the fire, one winter night about the twilight time, 
others, that the Ghost was but the representation of his 



THE HAUNTED MAN. 409 

gloomy thoughts, and Milly the embodiment of his better 
wisdom. I say nothing. 

— Except this. That as they were assembled in the 
old Hall, by no other light than that of a great fire 
(having dined early), the shadows once more stole out 
of their hiding-places, and danced about the room, 
showing the children marvellous shapes and faces on 
the walls, and gradually changing what was real and 
familiar there, to what was wild and magical. But that 
there was one thing in the Hall, to which the eyes of 
Redlaw, and of Milly and her husband, and of the old 
man, and of the student, and his bride that was to be, 
were often turned, which the shadows did not obscure 
or change. Deepened in its gravity by the firelight, 
and gazing from the darkness of the panelled wall 
like life, the sedate face in the portrait, with the beard 
and ruff, looked down at them from under its verdant 
wreath of holly, as they looked up at it; and clear and 
plain below, as if a voice had uttered them, were the 
words, 



THE END. 



' - 











PIP AND THE CONVICT. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS 



By CHARLES DICKENS. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORF : 

HtFRST & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

122 NASSAU STREET. 



1885, 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 



MY father's family name being Pirrip, and my chris- 
tian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of 
both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. 
So I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. 

I give Pirrip as my father's family name on the 
authority of his tombstone and my sister — Mrs. Joe Gar- 
gery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my 
father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of 
either of them (for their days were long before the days 
of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they 
were like were unreasonably derived from their tomb- 
stones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave 
me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, 
with curly black hair. From the character and turn of 
the inscription, " Also Georgiana Wife of the Above" I 
drew a childish conclusion that my mother was 
freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each 
about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a 
neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the 
memory of five little brothers of mine — who gave up 
trying to get a living exceedingly early in that univer- 
sal struggle — I am indebted for a belief I religiously 
entertained that they had all been born on their backs 
with their hands in their trousers pockets, and had 
never taken them out in this state of existence. 

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, 
within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. 
My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity 
of things seems to me to have been gained on a memo- 
rable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I 
YQh. I. X 




2 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

found out for certain that this bleak place, overgrown 
with nettles was the churchyard ; and that Philip Pir- 
rip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the 
above, were dead and buried ; and that Alexander, Bar- 
tholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children 
of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried ; and that 
the dark, flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, inter- 
sected with dykes, and mounds, and gates, with scat- 
tered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that 
the low, leaden line beyond, was the river; and that 
the distant savage lair from which the wind was rush- 
ing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers 
growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was 
Pip. 

" Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man 
started up from among the graves at the side of the 
church porch. " Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut 
your throat ! " 

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on 
his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, 
and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who 
had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and 
lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, 
and torn by briars ; who limped and shivered, and 
glared and growled ; and whose teeth chattered in his 
head as he seized me by the chin. 

"O! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. 
"Pray don't do it, sir." 

" Tell us your name! " said the man. " Quick! " 

"Pip, sir." 

" Once more," said the man, staring at me. " Give it 
mouth ! " 

"Pip. Pip, sir." 

" Show us where you live," said the man. " Point out 
the place ! " 

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore 
among the alder trees and pollards, a mile or more from 
the church. 

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned 
me upside-down, and emptied my pockets. There was 
nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the 
church came to itself — for he was so sudden and strong 
that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw 
the steeple under my feet — when the church came to it- 



G&EAT EXPECTATIONS. 

self, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, 
while he ate the bread ravenously. 

"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, 
" what fat cheeks you ha' got." 

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time 
undersized for my years, and not strong. 

" Darn Me if I couldn't eat 'em," said the man, with 
a threatening shake of his head, " and if I han't half a 
mind to't ! " 

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and 
held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; 
partly, to keep myself upon it ; partly, to keep myself 
from crying. 

"Nowlookee here!" said the man. "Where's your 
mother?" 

"There, sir! "said I. 

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked 
over his shoulder. 

" There, sir ! " I timidly explained. " Also Georgiana. 
That's my mother." 

"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your 
father alonger your mother?" 

"Yes sir, said I; "him too; late of this parish." 

"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. " Who d'ye 
live with — supposin' you're kindly let to live, which I 
han't made up my mind about?" 

"My sister, sir — Mrs. Joe Gargery — wife of Joe Gar- 
gery, the blacksmith, sir." 

" Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And looked down at his 
leg. 

After darkly looking at his leg and at me several 
times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by 
both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold 
me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into 
mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his. 

"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being 
whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file 
is?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"And you know what wittles is? 5 ' 

"Yes, sir." 

After each question he tilted me over a little more, 
so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and 
danger. 



4 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" You get me a file." He tilted me again. " And you 
get me wittles." He tilted me again. " You bring 'em 
both to me." He tilted me again. " Or I'll have your 
heart and liver out." He tilted me again. 

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung 
to him with both hands, and said, " If you would kindly 
please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't 
be sick, and perhaps I could attend more." 

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that 
the church jumped over its own weather-cock. Then, 
he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the 
top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms: 

" You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file 
and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old 
Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to 
say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your hav- 
ing seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, 
and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from 
my words in any particular, no matter how small it is, 
and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted 
and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. 
There's a young man hid with me, in comparison with 
which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears 
the words I speak. That young man has a secret way 
pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his 
heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt 
to hide himself from that young man. A boy may 
lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself 
up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think 
himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will 
softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him 
open. I am keeping that young man from harming of 
you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I 
find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your 
inside. Now, what do you say?" 

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get 
him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come 
to him at the Battery, early in the morning. 

" Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said the 
man. 

I said so, and he took me down. 

"Now, he pursued, "you remember what you've 
undertook, and you remember that young man, and 
you get home!" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 5 

u Croo-good night, sir, I faltered. 

" Much of that!" said he, glancing about him over 
the cold wet flat. " I wish I was a frog. Or a eel! " 

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in 
both his arms — clasping himself, as if to hold himself 
together — and limped towards the low church wall. 
As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, 
and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, 
he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the 
hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out 
of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull 
him in. 

When he came to the low church wall he got over it, 
like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then 
turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, 
I set my face towards home, and made the best use of 
my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and 
saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging 
himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore 
feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes 
here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were 
heavy or the tide was in. 

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line 
then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was 
just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet 
so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red 
lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of 
the river I could faintly make out the only two black 
things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing 
upright; one of these was the beacon by which the 
sailors steered — like an unhooped cask upon a pole — an 
ugly thing when you were near it; the other a gibbet, 
with some chains hanging to it which had once held a 
pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as 
if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and 
going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a ter- 
rible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle 
lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered 
whether they thought so too. I looked all round for 
the horrible young man, and could seen no signs of him. 
But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without 
stopping, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER II. 



MY sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty 
years older than I, and had established a great 
reputation with herself and the neighbours because she 
had brought me up " by hand." Having at that time to 
find out for myself what the expression meant, and 
knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be 
much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well 
as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were 
both brought up by hand. 

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I 
had a general impression that she must have made Joe 
Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with 
curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and 
with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they 
seemed to, have somehow got mixed with their own 
whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, 
easy-going, foolish, dear fellow — a sort of Hercules in 
strength, and also in weakness. 

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had 
such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used 
to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself 
with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall 
and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fast- 
ened over her figure behind with two loops, and having 
a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full 
of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in 
herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she 
wore this apron so much. Though I really see no 
reason why she should have worn it at all, or why, if 
she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, 
every day of her life. 

Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden 
house, as many of the the dwellings in our country were 
— most of them, at that time. When I ran home from 
the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was 
sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow- 
sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe im- 
parted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the 
latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, 
sitting in the chimney corner. 

" Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times,, looking for 




JOE GARGERY AND MRS. JOE. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 7 

you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's 
dozen." 

"Is she?" 

"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got 
Tickler with her." 

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button 
on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great 
depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece 
of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled 
frame. 

"She sot down," said Joe, " and she got up, and she 
made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's 
what she did," said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between 
the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it: "she 
Ram-paged out, Pip." 

"Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated 
him as a larger species of child, and as no more than 
my equal. 

"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, 
"she's been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five 
minutes, Pip. She's a coming! Get behind the door, 
old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you." 

I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the 
door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, 
immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to 
its further investigation. She concluded by throwing 
me — I often served her as a connubial missile — at Joe, 
who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me 
on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with 
his great leg. 

"Where have you been, you young monkey ?" said 
Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell me directly what 
you've been doing to wear me away with fret and 
fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if 
you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys." 

"I have only been to the churchyard," said I, from 
my stool, crying and rubbing myself. 

"Churchyard!" repeated my sister. "If it warn't 
for me you'd have been to the churchyard long ago, and 
stayed there. Who brought you up by hand ? " 

"You did," said I. 

"And why did I do it, I should like to know !" ex- 
claimed my sister. 

I whimpered, "I don't know," 



8 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"J don't!" said my sister. "I'd never do it again! 
I know that. I may truly say I've never had this 
apron of mine off, since born you were. It's bad 
enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery) 
without being your mother." 

My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked 
disconsolately at the fire. For, the fugitive out on the 
marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young 
man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was 
under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, 
rose before me in the avenging coals. 

"Hah!" said Mrs, Joe, restoring Tickler to his sta- 
tion. "Churchyard, indeed! You may well say 
churchyard, you two." One of us, by-the-by, had not 
said it at all. "You'll drive me to the churchyard be- 
twixt you, one of these days, and oh, a pr-r-recious pair 
you'd be without me ! " 

As she applied herself to set the tea things, Joe 
peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally 
casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind 
of pair we practically should make, under the grevious 
circumstances foreshadowed. After that he sat feeling 
his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and follow- 
ing Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner 
always was at squally times. 

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread- 
and-butter for us, that never varied. First, with her 
left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against 
her bib — where it sometimes got a pin into it, and 
sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our 
mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on 
a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind 
of way as if she were making a plaister — using both 
sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trim- 
ming and moulding the butter off round the crust. 
Then she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge 
of the plaister, and then sawed a very thick round off 
the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the 
loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and 
I the other. 

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I 
dared not eat my slice. I felt that I must have some- 
thing in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his 
ally the still more dreadful young^man, I knew Mrs, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 9 

Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and 
that my larcenous researches might find nothing 
available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put 
my hunk of bread-and-butter down the leg of my 
trousers. 

The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement 
of this purpose, I found to be quite awful. It was as if 
I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a 
high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. 
And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious 
Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow- 
sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with 
me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we 
bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to 
each others admiration now and then — which stimu- 
lated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times 
invited me, by the display of his fast-diminishing slice, 
to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he 
found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on 
one knee, and my untouched bread-and-butter on the 
other. At last, I desperately considered that, the thing 
I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be 
done in the least improbable manner consistent with 
the circumstances. I took advantage of the moment 
when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread- 
and-butter down my leg. 

Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he 
supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thought- 
ful bite out of his slice, which he didn't seem to enjoy. 
He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, 
pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it 
down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, 
and had just got his head on one side for a good pur- 
chase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that 
my bread-and-butter was gone. 

The wonder and consternation with which Joe 
stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, 
were too evident to escape my sister's observation. 

"What's the matter now?" said she, smartly, as she 
put down her cup. 

" I say, you know!" muttered Joe, shaking his head 
at me in very serious remonstrance. "Pip, old chap! 
You'll do yourself a mischief. It'll stick somewhere. 
You can't have chawed it, Pip," 



10 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" What's the matter now?" repeated my sister, more 
sharply than before. 

" If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd recom- 
mend you to do it," said Joe, all aghast. " Manners is 
manners, but still your elth's your elth. 

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she 
pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, 
knocked his head for a little while against the wall be- 
hind him: while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on. 

" Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter," 
said my sister, out of breath, "you staring great stuck 
pig." 

Joe looked at her in a helpless way; then took a help- 
less bite, and looked at me again. 

" You know, Pip," said Joe, solemnly, with his last 
bite in his cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, 
as if we two were quite alone, "you and me is always 
friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon you, any time. 
But such a — " he moved his chair, and looked about the 
floor between us, and then again at me — "such a most 
oncommon bolt as that!" 

" Been bolting his food, has he? " cried my sister. 

"You know, old chap," said Joe, looking at me, and 
not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, " I Bolted, 
myself, when I was your age — frequent — and as a boy 
I've been among a many Bolters; but I never see your 
bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't Bolted 
dead." 

My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the 
hair: saying nothing more than the awful words, " You 
come along and be dosed." 

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those 
days as a .fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a 
supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its vir- 
tues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, 
so much of this elixir was administered to me as a 
choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, 
smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening 
the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixt- 
ure, which was poured down my throat, for my greater 
comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, 
as a boot would be held in a boot- jack. Joe got off with 
half a pint; but was made to swallow that (much to his 
disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 11 

before the fire), " because he had had a turn." Judging 
from myself, I should say he certainly had a turn after- 
wards, if he had had none before. 

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man 
or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret 
burden co-operates with another secret burden down the 
leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punish- 
ment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob 
Mrs. Joe — I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I 
never thought of any of the housekeeping property as 
his — united to the necessity of always keeping one hand 
on my bread-and-butter as I sat, or when I was ordered 
about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me 
out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the 
fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, 
of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me 
to secresy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't 
starve until to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other 
times, I thought, What if the young man who was with 
so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands 
in me, should yield to a constitutional impatience, or 
should mistake the time, and should think himself ac- 
credited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to- 
morrow! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with 
terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, 
nobody's ever did? 

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding 
for next day, with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by 
the Dutch clock. I tried it with the load upon my leg 
(and that made me think afresh of the man with the 
load on his leg), and found the tendency of exercise to 
bring the bread-and-butter out at my ankle, quite un- 
manageable. Happily I slipped away, and deposited 
that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom. 

"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring, and 
was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before 
being sent up to bed; " was that great guns, Joe?' 

" Ah! " said Joe. " There's another conwict off." 

"What does that mean, Joe?" said I. 

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, 
said snappishly, "Escaped. Escaped." Administering 
the definition like Tar-water„ 

While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her 
needle-work, I put my mouth into the forms of saying 




12 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

to Joe, "What's a convict?" Joe put his mouth into 
the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, 
that I could make out nothing of it but the single word, 

"Pip." 

" There was a conwict off last night/' said Joe, aloud, 
"after sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. 
And now it appears they're firing warning of another." 

" Who's firing? "said I. 

"Drat that boy," interposed my sister, frowning at 
me over her work, "what a questioner he is. Ask no 
questions, and you'll be told no lies." 

It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply 
thatlshouldbetoldlies by her,even if I did ask questions. 
But she never was polite, unless there was company. 

At this point, Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by 
taking the utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, 
and to put it into the form of a word that looked to me 
like "sulks." Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. 
Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying " her? " 
But Joe wouldn't hear of that, at all, and again opened 
his mouth very wide, and shook the form of a most 
emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of 
the word. 

"Mrs. Joe," said I, as a last resource, "I should like 
to know — if you wouldn't much mind — where the firing 
comes from?" 

" Lord bless the boy! " exclaimed my sister, as if she 
didn't (juite mean that, but rather the contrary. " From 
the Hulks." 

" Oh-h! " said I, looking at Joe. " Hulks! " 

Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, 
"Well, I told you so." 

" And please what's Hulks? " said I. 

" That's the way, with this boy! " exclaimed my sister, 
pointing me out with her needle and thread, and shak- 
ing her head at me. " Answer him one question, and 
he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, 
right 'cross th' meshes." We always used that name 
for marshes in our country. 

" I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and why they're 
put there?" said I, in a general way, and with quiet 
desperation. 

It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. 
"I tell you what, young fellow," said she, "I didn't 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 13 

bring* you up by hand to badger people's lives out. It 
would be blame to me, and not praise, if I had. People 
are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because 
they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they 
always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along 
to bed!" 

I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, 
as I went up-stairs in the dark, with my head ting- 
ling — from Mrs. Joe's thimble, having played the tam- 
bourine upon it, to accompany her last words — I felt 
fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the 
Hulks were handy for me. I was clearly on my way 
there. I had begun by asking questions, and I was 
going to rob Mrs. Joe. 

Since that time, which is far enough away now, I 
have often thought that few people know what secresy 
there is in the young, under terror. No matter how un- 
reasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in mortal 
terror of the young man who wanted my heart and 
liver; I was in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the 
iron leg; I was in mortal terror of myself, from whom 
an awful promise had been extracted; I had no hope of 
deliverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed 
me at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might 
have done on requirement, in the secresy of my terror. 

If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine 
myself drifting down the river on a strong spring tide, 
to the Hulks; a ghostly pirate calling out to me through 
a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the gibbet-station, that 
I had better come ashore and be hanged there at once, 
and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had 
been inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of 
morning I must rob the pantry. There was no doing it 
in the night, for there was no getting a light by easy 
friction then; to have got one, I must have struck it out 
of flint and steel, and made a noise like the very pirate 
himself rattling his chains. 

As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little 
window was shot with grey, I got up and went down 
stairs; every board upon the way, and every crack in 
every board, calling after me, " Stop thief!" and " Get 
up, Mrs. Joe!" In the pantry, which was far more 
abundantly supplied than usual, owing to the season, I 
was very much alarmed, by a hare hanging up by the 



14 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back 
was half turned, winking. I had no time for verifica- 
tion, no time for selection, no time for anything, for I 
had no time to spare. I stole some bread, some rind of 
cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up 
in my pocket-handkerchief with my last night's slice), 
some brandy from a stone bottle (which I decanted into 
a glass bottle I had secretly used for making that intoxi- 
cating fluid, Spanish liquorice-water, up in my room; 
diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen cup- 
board), a meat bone with very little on it, and a beauti- 
ful round compact pork pie. I was nearly going away 
without the pie, but I was tempted to mount upon a 
shelf, to look what it was that was put away so care- 
fully in a covered earthenware dish in a corner, and I 
found it was the pie, and I took it, in the hope that it 
was not intended for early use, and would not be 
missed for some time. 

There was a door in the kitchen communicating with 
the forge; I unlocked and unbolted that door, and got 
a file from among Joe's tools. Then I put the fasten- 
ings as I had found them, opened the door at which I 
had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and 
ran for the misty marshes. 



CHAPTER III. 



IT was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen 
the damp lying on the outside of my little window, 
as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and 
using the window for a pocket handkerchief. Now I 
saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, 
like a coarser sort of spiders' webs; hanging itself from 
twig to twig and blade to blade. On every rail and 
gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh-mist was so thick, 
that the wooden finger on the post directing people to 
our village — a direction which they never accepted, for 
they never came there — was invisible to me until I was 
quite close under it, there, as I looked up at it while it 
dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a 
phantom devoting me to the Hulks. 

The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the 
marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 15 

everything seemed to run at me. This was very disa- 
greeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dykes and 
banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they 
cried as plainly as could be, "A boy with somebody- 
else's pork pie! Stop him!" The cattle came upon me 
with like suddeness, staring out of their eyes, and 
steaming out of their nostrils, "Holloa, young thief!" 
One black ox, with a white cravat on — who even had 
to my awakened conscience something of a clerical air 
— fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, and moved his 
Tblunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I 
moved round, that I blubbered out to him, "I couldn't 
help it, sir! It wasn't for myself I took it!" Upon 
which he put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke 
out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his 
hind-legs and a flourish of his tail. 

All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but 
however fast I went, I couldn't warm my feet, to which 
the damp cold seemed riveted, as the iron was riveted 
to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew 
my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been 
down there on a Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on 
an old gun, had told me that when I was 'prentice to 
him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there ! 
However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself 
at last too far to the right, and consequently had to try 
back along the river-side, on the bank of loose stones 
above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide out. 
Making my way along here with all despatch, I had 
just crossed a ditch which I knew to be very near the 
Battery, and had just scrambled up the mound beyond 
the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me. His 
back was towards me, and he had his arm folded, and 
was nodding forward, heavy with sleep. 

I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him 
with his breakfast, in that unexpected manner, so I 
went forward softly and touched him on the shoulder. 
He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man 
but another man! 

And yet this man was dressed in coarse grey, too, 
had a great iron on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, 
and cold, and was everything that the other man was; 
except that he had not the same face, and had a flat, 
broad-brimmed, low-crowned felt hat on. All this I 



16 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to see it 
in; he swore an oath at me, made a hit at me — it was a 
round, weak blow that missed me and almost knocked 
himself down, for it made him stumble — and then he ran 
into the mist stumbling twice as he went, and I lost 
him* 

"It's the young man!" I thought, feeling my heart 
shoot as I identified him. I dare say I should have felt 
a pain in my liver, too, if I had known where it was. 

I was soon at the Battery, after that, and there was 
the right man — hugging himself and limping to and 
fro, as if he had never all night left off hugging and 
limping — waiting for me. He was awfully cold, to be 
sure, I half expected to see him drop down before 
my face and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so 
awfully hungry, too, that when I handed him the file and 
he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to me he would 
have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He 
did not turn me upside down, this time, to get at what 
I had, but left me right side upwards while I opened 
the bundle and emptied my pockets. 

" What's in the bottle, boy ?" said he. 

"Brandy," said I. 

He was already handing mincemeat down his throat 
in the most curious manner— more like a man who was 
putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry, than a 
man who was eating it — but he left off to take some of 
the liquor. He shivered all the while, so violently, that 
it was quite as much as he could do to keep the neck of 
the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off. 

" I think you have got the ague," said I. 

" I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he. 

" It's bad about here," I told him. " You've been ly- 
ing out on the meshes, and they're dreadful aguish. 
Rheumatic too." 

" I'll eat my breakfast afore they're the death of me," 
said he, "I'd do that, if I was going to be strung up 
to that there gallows as there is over there, directly 
arterwards. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet you." 

He was gobbling mincemeat, meat-bone, bread, cheese, 
and pork pie, all at once: staring distrustfully while he 
did so at the mist all round us, and often stopping — even 
stopping his jaws — to listen. Some real or fancied 
sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 17 

Upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, 
suddenly : 

" You're not a deceiving imp ? You brought no one 
with you ? " 

"No, sir! No!" 

" Nor giv' no one the office to follow you ? " 

"No !" 

"Well," said he, "I believe you. You'd be but a 
fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you 
could help to hunt a wretched warmint, hunted as 
near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint 
is!" 

Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in 
him like a clock, and was going to strike. And he 
smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes. 

Pitjdng his desolation, and watching him as he grad- 
ually settled down upon the pie, I made bold to say, " I 
am glad you enjoy it." 

" Did you speak ? " 

"I said I was glad you enjoyed it." 

" Thankee, my boy. I do." 

I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his 
food ; and I now noticed a decided similarity between 
the dog's way of eating, and the man's. The man took 
strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swal- 
lowed , or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon 
and too fast ; and he looked sideways here and there 
while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every 
direction, of somebody's coming; to take the pie away. 
He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to 
appreciate it comfortably, I thought, or to have any- 
body to dine with him, without making a chop with his 
jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was 
very like the dog. 

" I am afraid you won't leave any of it for him," said 
I timidly ; after a silence during which I had hesitated 
as to the politeness of making the remark. "There's 
no more to be got where that came from." It was 
the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the 
hint. 

"Leave any for him ? Who's him?" said my friend, 
stopping in his crunching of pie-crust. 

" The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid 
with you." 

vol. i. £ _ 



18 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"Oh ah !" he returned, with something like a gruff 
laugh. " Him ? Yes, yes ! He don't want no wittles." 

" I thought he looked as if he did/' said I. 

The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the 
keenest scrutiny and the greatest surprise. 

"Looked? When?" 

" Just now." 

"Where?" 

"Yonder," said I, pointing; "over there, where I 
found him nodding asleep, and thought it was you." 

He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I 
began to think his first idea about cutting my throat 
had revived. 

" Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat," I 
explained, trembling; " and — and" — I was very anx- 
ious to put this delciately — " and with — the same reason 
for wanting to borrow a file. Didn't you hear the cannon 
last night ?" 

" Then, there was firing ! " he said to himself. 

"I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that," I 
returned, "for we heard it up at home, and that's fur- 
ther away, and we were shut in besides." 

" Why, see now! " said he. " When a man's alone on 
these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, per- 
ishing of cold and want, he hears nothin' all night, but 
guns firing, and voices calling. Hears ? He sees the 
soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches 
carried, afore, closing in round him. Hears his num- 
ber called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of 
the muskets, hears the orders 'Make ready ! Present ! 
Cover him steady, men ! ' and is laid hands on — and 
there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last 
night — coming up in order, Damn'em, with their tramp, 
tramp — I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the 
mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day. — But 
this man; " he had said all the rest as if he had forgot- 
ten my being there; " did you notice anything in him? " 
" He had a badly bruised face," said I, recalling what 
I hardly knew I knew. 

"Not here?" exclaimed the man, striking his left 
cheek mercilessly, with the flat of his hand. 
"Yes, there!" 

"Where is he ?" He crammed what little food was 
left, into the breast of his grey jacket. " Show me the 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 19 

way he went. I'll pull him down, like a bloodhound. 
Curse this iron on my sore leg ! Give us hold of the 
file, boy." 

I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded 
the . other man, and he looked up at it for an instant. 
But he was down on the rank wet grass, filing at his 
iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding 
his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was 
bloody, but which he handled as roughly as if it had no 
more feeling in it than the file. I was very much afraid 
of him again, now that he had worked himself into this 
fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of 
keeping away from home any longer. I told him I 
must go, but he took no notice, so I thought the best 
thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw of him, 
his head was bent over his knee and he was working 
hard at his. fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at 
it and at his leg. The last I heard of him, I stopped in 
the mist to listen, and the file was still going. 



CHAPTER IV. 



I FULLY expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, 
waiting to take me up. But not only was there no 
Constable there but no discovery had yet been made of 
the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting 
the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe 
had been put upon the kitchen door-step to keep him out 
of the dustpan — an article into which his destiny always 
led him, sooner or later, when my sister was vigorously 
reaping the floors of her establishment. 

" And where the deuce ha' you been ?" was Mrs. Joe's 
Christmas salutation, when I and my conscience showed 
ourselves. 

I said I had been down to hear the Carols. "Ah ! 
well! " observed Mrs. Joe. "You might ha' done worse." 
Not a doubt of that I thought. 

" Perhaps if I warn't a blackmith's wife, and (what's 
the same thing) a slave with her apron never off, I 
should have been to hear the Carols," said Mrs. Joe. 
"I'm rather partial to Carols, myself, and that's the 
best of reasons for my never hearing any." 



20 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as 
the dustpan had retired before us, drew the back of his 
hand across his nose with a conciliatory air, when Mrs. 
Joe darted a look at him, and when her eyes were with- 
drawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and exhibit- 
ed them to me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a 
cross temper. This was so much her normal state, that 
Joe and I would often, for weeks together, be, as to our 
fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to their legs. 

We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg 
of pickled pork and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed 
fowls. A handsome mince-pie had been made yester- 
day morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not 
being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. 
Those extensive arrangements occasioned us to be cut 
off unceremoniously in respect of breakfast ; " for I 
an't," said Mrs. Joe, "I an't a going to have no formal 
cramming and busting and washing up now, with what 
I've got before me, I promise you ! " 

So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two 
thousand troops on a forced march instead of a man 
and boy at home ; and we took gulps of milk and 
water, with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the 
dresser. In the mean time, Mrs. Joe put clean white 
curtains up, and tacked a new flowered-flounce across 
the wide chimney to replace the old one, and uncovered 
the little state parlour across the passage, which was 
never uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest 
of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even 
extended to the four little white crockery poodles on the 
mantelshelf, each with a black nose and a basket of 
flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the 
other. Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had 
an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncom- 
fortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness 
is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by 
their religion. 

My sister having so much to do, was going to church 
vicariously ; that is to say, Joe and I were going. In 
his working clothes, Joe was a well-knit characteristic- 
looking blacksmith ; in his holiday clothes, he was 
more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than any- 
thing else. Nothing that he wore then, fitted him or 
seemed to belong to him ; and everything that he wore 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 21 

then, grazed him. On the present festive occasion he 
emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were 
going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday 
penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have 
had some general idea that I was a young offender 
whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my 
birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with 
according to the outraged majesty of the law. I was 
always treated as if I had insisted on being born in oppo- 
sition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, 
and against the dissuading arguments of my best 
friends. Even when I was taken to have a new suit of 
clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind 
of Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the 
free use of my limbs. 

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been 
a moving spectacle for compassionate minds. Yet, 
what I suffered outside, was nothing to what I under- 
went within. The terrors that had assailed me when- 
ever Mrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the 
room, were only to be equalled by the remorse with 
which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done. 
Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered 
whether the Church would be powerful enough to shield 
me from the vengeance of the terrible young man, if I 
divulged to that establishment. I conceived the idea 
that the time when the banns were read and when the 
clergyman said, " Ye are now to declare it!" would be 
the time for me to rise and propose a private conference 
in the vestry. I am far from being sure that I might 
not have astonished our small congregation by resort- 
ing to this extreme measure, but for its being Christmas 
Day and no Sunday. 

Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; 
and Mr. Hubble the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble ; and 
Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's uncle, but Mrs. Joe appro- 
priated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in the 
nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The din- 
ner hour was half -past one. When Joe and I got home, 
we found the table laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the 
dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked (it never 
was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and 
everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the 
robbery. 



22 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

The time came, without bringing with it any relief to 
my feelings, and the company came. Mr. Wopsle, 
united to a Roman nose and a large shining bald fore- 
head, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly 
proud of ; indeed it was understood among his 
acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, 
he would read the clergyman into fits ; he himself con- 
fessed that if the Church was " thrown upon/' meaning 
to competition, he would not despair of making his 
mark in it. The Church not Toeing "thrown open," he 
was, as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the 
Amens tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm 
— always giving the whole verse — he looked all round 
the congregation first, as much as to say, " You have 
heard our friend overhead; oblige, me with your opin- 
ion of this style! " 

I opened the door to the company — making believe 
that it was a habit of ours to open that door — and I 
opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next to Mr. and Mrs. Hub- 
ble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. I 
was not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest 
penalties. 

" Mrs. Joe/' said Uncle Pumblechook : a large hard- 
breathing, middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a 
fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright 
on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all 
but choked, and had that moment come to ; "I 
have brought you as the compliments of the season — 
I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry wine — and 
I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine." 

Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a pro- 
found novelty, with exactly the same words, and carry- 
ing the two bottles like dumb-bells. Every Christmas 
Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, " Oh, Un — 
cle Pum — ble — chook! This is kind!" Every Christmas 
Day, he retorted, as he now retorted, " It's no more 
than your merits. And now are you all bobbish, and 
how's Sixpennorth of halfpence?" meaning me. 

We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and ad- 
journed for the nuts and apples, to the parlour; which 
was a change very like Joe's change from his working 
clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister was uncom- 
monly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was 
generally more gracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 23 

than in other company. I remember Mrs. Hubble 
as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who 
held a conveniently juvenile position, because she had 
married Mr. Hubble — I don't know at what remote 
period — when she was much younger than he. I re- 
member Mr. Hubble as a tough high- shouldered stoop- 
ing old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs 
extraordinarily wide apart; so that in my short days I 
always saw some miles of open country between them 
when I met him coming up the lane. 

Among this good company I should have felt myself, 
even if I hadn't robbed the pantry, in a false position. 
Not because I was sqeezed in at an acute angle of the 
table-cloth, with the table in my chest, and the Pumble- 
chookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not 
allowed to speak (I didn't want to speak), nor because 
I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of 
the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of 
which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to 
be vain. No; I should not have minded that, if they 
would only have left me alone. But they wouldn't 
leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity 
lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, 
every now and then, and stick the point into me. I 
might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish 
arena, Igotsosmartinglytouchedup by thesemoralgoads. 

It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. 
Wopsle said grace with theatrical declamation — as it 
now appears to me, something like a religious cross of 
the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third — and 
ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be 
truly grateful. Upon which my sister fixed me with 
her eye, and said, in a low reproachful voice, "Do you 
hear that? Be grateful." 

"Especially," said Mr. Pumblechook, "be grateful, 
boy, to them which brought you up by hand." 

Mrs. Hubble shook her head and contemplating me 
with a mournful presentiment that I should come to no 
good, asked, " Why is that the young are never grate- 
ful?" The moral mystery seemed too much for the 
company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, 
"Naturally wicious." Everybody then murmured 
" True! " and looked at me in a particularly unpleasant 
and personal manner. 



24 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Joe's Station and influence were something feeblex* 
(if possible) when there was company, than when there 
was none. But he always aided ancj comforted me 
when he could, in some way of his own, and he always 
did so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were 
any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned 
into my plate, at this point, about half a pint. 

A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed 
the sermon with some severity, and intimated — in the 
usual hypothetical case of the Church being "thrown 
open" — what kind of sermon he would have given them. 
After favouring them with some heads of that dis- 
course, he remarked that he considered the subject of 
the day's homily ill chosen; which was the less excus- 
able, he added, when there were so many subjects 
"going about." 

"True again," said Uncle Pumblechook. "You've 
hit it, sir! Plenty of subjects going about, for them 
that know how to put salt upon their tails. That's 
what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject 
if he's ready with his salt-box." Mr. Pumblechook 
added, after a short interval of reflection, "Look at 
Pork alone. There's a subject! If you want a subject, 
look at Pork!" 

"True, sir. Many a moral for the young," returned 
Mr. Wopsle ; and I knew he was going to lug me in, 
before he said it; "might be deducted from that text." 

("You listen to this," said my sister to me, in a se- 
vere parenthesis.) 

Joe gave me some more gravy. 

" Swine," pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, 
and pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were 
mentioning my christian name; " Swine were the com- 
panions of the prodigal. The gluttony of swine is put 
before us, as an example to the young." (I thought this 
pretty well in him who had been praising up the pork 
for being so plump and juicy.) " What is detestable 
in a pig, is more detestable in a boy." 

" Or girl," suggested Mr. Hubble. 

" Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble," assented Mr. Wopsle, 
rather irritably, "but there is no girl present." 

"Besides," said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on 
me, "think what you've got to be grateful for. If you'd 
been born a Squeaker " 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 25 

" He tvas, if ever a child was/' said my sister, most 
emphatically. 

Joe gave me some more gravy. 

"Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker," said Mr. 
Pumblechook. " If you had been born such, would you 
have been here now ? Not you— — " 

" Unless in that form," said Mr. Wopsle, nodding 
towards the dish. 

" But I don't mean in that form, sir," returned Mr. 
Pumblechook, who had an objection to being inter- 
rupted; "I mean, enjoying himself with his elders and 
betters, and improving himself with their conversa- 
tion, and rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he 
have been doing that ? No, he wouldn't. And what 
would have been your destination ? " turning on me 
again. " You would have been disposed of for so many 
shillings according to the market price of the article, 
and Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you 
as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped 
you under his left arm, and with his right he would have 
tucked up his frock to get a penknife from out of his 
waistcoat-pocket, and he would have shed your blood 
and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not 
a bit of it!" 

Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take. 

"He was a world of trouble to you, ma'am," said Mrs. 
Hubble, commiserating my sister. 

"Trouble ?" echoed my sister; "trouble ?" And then 
entered on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had 
been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had 
committed, and all the high places I had tumbled from, 
and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the 
injuries I had done myself, and all the times she had 
wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously 
refused to go there. 

I think the Romans must have aggravated one another 
very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the 
restless people they were, in consequence. Anyhow, 
Mr. Wopsle's Roman nose so aggravated me, duyingthe 
recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked 
to pull it until he howled. But, all I had endured up to 
this time, was nothing in comparison with the awful 
feelings that took possession of me when the pause was 
broken which ensued upon my sister's recital, and in 



26 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

which pause everybody had looked at me (as I felt pain- 
fully conscious) with indignation and abhorrence. 

" Yet," said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company 
gently back to the theme from which they had strayed, 
"Pork — regarded as biled — is rich, too; ain't it ?" 

"Have a little brandy, uncle/' said my sister. 

Heavens, it had come at last ! He would find it was 
weak, he would say it was weak, and I was lost ! I held 
tight to the leg of the table under the cloth, with both 
hands, and awaited my fate. 

My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with 
the stone bottle, and poured his brandy out : no one else 
taking any. The wretched man trifled with his glass — 
took it up, looked at it through the light, put it down — 
prolonged my misery. All this time, Mrs. Joe and Joe 
were briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding. 

1 couldn't keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight 
by the leg of the table with my hands and feet, I saw 
the miserable creature finger his glass playfully, take it 
up, smile, throw his head back, and drink the brandy 
off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized 
with unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing 
to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling 
spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and rushing out at 
the door; he then became visible through the window, 
violently plunging and expectorating, making the most 
hideous faces, and apparently out of his mind. 

I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I 
didn't know how I had done it, but I had no doubt I had 
murdered him somehow. In my dreadful situation, it 
was a relief when he was brought back, and, surveying 
the company all round as if they had disagreed with 
him, sank down into his chair with the one significant 
gasp, "Tar!" 

I had filled up the bottle from the tar- water- jug. I 
knew he would be worse by-and,-by. I moved the table, 
like a Medium of the present day, by the vigour of my 
unseen hold upon it. 

"Tar!" cried my sister, in amazement. "Why, how 
ever could Tar come there?" 

But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in 
that kitchen, wouldn't hear the word, wouldn't hear of 
the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his 
hand, and asked for hot gin-and- water. My sister^ who 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 2? 

had begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ 
herself actively in getting the gin, the hot water, the 
sugar, and the lemon-peel, and mixing them. For the 
time at least, I was saved. I still held on the leg of the 
table, but clutched it now with the fervour of gratitude. 

By degrees, I became calm enough to release my 
grasp and partake of pudding. Mr. Pumblechook par- 
took of pudding. All partook of pudding. The course 
terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam 
under the genial influence of gin-and- water. I began 
to think I should get over the day, when my sister said 
to Joe, "Clean plates — cold." 

I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and 
pressed it to my bosom as if it had been the companion 
of my youth and friend of my soul. I foresaw what 
was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone. 

"You must taste," said my sister, addressing the 
guests with her best grace, " you must taste, to finish 
with, such a delightful and delicious present of Uncle 
Pumblechook's ! " 

Must they! Let them not hope to taste it! 

"You must know," said my sister, rising, "it's a pie; 
a savoury pork pie." 

The company murmured their compliments. Uncle 
Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his 
fellow-creatures, said — quite vivaciously, all things 
considered — " Well, Mrs. Joe, we'll do our best endeav- 
ours; let us have a cut at this same pie." 

My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps pro- 
ceed to the pantry. I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance 
his knife. I saw re-awakening appetite in the Roman 
nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark 
that "a bit of savoury pork pie would lay atop of any- 
thing you could mention, and do no harm," and I heard 
Joe say, " You shall have some, Pip." I have never been 
absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of 
terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the 
company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I 
must run away. I released the leg of the table, and 
ran for my life. 

But, I ran no further than the house door, for there I 
ran head foremost into a party of soldiers with their 
muskets : one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to 
me, saying, " Here you are, look sharp, come on!" 



28 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the 
butt-ends of their loaded muskets on our door-step, 
caused the dinner-party to rise from table in con- 
fusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen 
empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wander- 
ing lament of*" Gracious goodness gracious me, what's 
gone — with the — pie ! " 

The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. 
Joe stood staring; at which crisis I partially recovered 
the use of my senses. It was the sergeant who had 
spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the 
company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended 
towards them in his right hand, and his left on my 
shoulder. 

"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen/' said the ser- 
geant, "but as I have mentioned at the door to this smart 
young shaver" (which he hadn't), " I am on a chase in 
the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith." 

"And pray, what might you want with him?" 
retorted my sister, quick to resent his being wanted 
at all. 

"Missis," returned the gallant sergeant, "speaking 
for myself, I should reply, the honour and pleasure of 
his fine wife's acquaintance; speaking for the king, I 
answer, a little job done." 

This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; 
insomuch that Mr. Pumblechook cried audibly, "Good 
again t " 



You see, blacksmith," said the sergeant, who had 
by this time picked out Joe with his eye, "we have had 
an accident with these, and I find the lock of one of 'em 
goes wrong, and the coupling don't act pretty. As they 
are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your 
eye over them?" 

Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that 
the job would necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, 
and would take nearer two hours than one. " Will it? 
Then will you set about it at once, blacksmith," said 
the off-hand sergeant, "as it's on his Majesty's service. 
And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they'll make 
themselves useful." With that, he called to his men, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 29 

who came trooping into the kitchen one after another, 
and piled their arms in a corner. And then they stood 
about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands loosely 
clasped before them; now, resting a knee or a shoulder; 
now, easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door 
to spit stiffly over their high stocks, out into the yard. 

All these things I saw without them knowing that I 
saw them, for I was in an agony of apprehension. But, 
beginning to perceive that the handcuffs were not for 
me, and that the military had so far got the better of 
the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a 
little more of my scattered wits. 

" Would you give me the Time ?" said the sergeant, 
addressing himself to Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man 
whose appreciative powers justified the inference that 
he was equal to the time. 

"It's just gone half -past two." 

" That's not so bad," said the sergeant, reflecting; 
"even if I was forced to halt here nigh two hours, 
that'll do. How far might you call yourselves from 
the marshes, hereabouts ? Not above a mile, I reckon?" 

"Just a mile," said Mrs. Joe. 

" That'll do. We begin to close in upon 'em about 
dusk. A little before dusk, my orders are. That'll do." 

"Convicts, sergeant?" asked Mr. Wopsle, in a mat- 
ter-of-course way. 

" Aye ! " returned the sergeant, "two. They're pretty 
well known to be out on the marshes still, and they 
won't try to get clear of 'em before dusk. Anybody 
here seen anything of any such game?" 

Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confi- 
dence. Nobody thought of me. 

"Well ! " said the sergeant, "they'll find themselves 
trapped in a circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. 
Now, blacksmith ! If you're ready, His Majesty the 
King is." 

Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, 
and his leather apron on, and passed into the forge. 
One of the soldiers opened its wooden windows, an- 
other lighted the fire, another turned to at the bellows, 
the rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roar- 
ing. Then Joe began to hammer and clink, hammer and 
clink, and we all looked on. 

The interest of the impending pursuit not only ab- 



30 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

sorbed the general attention, but even made my sister 
liberal. She drew a picher of beer from the cask, for 
the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a glass of 
brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, "Give 
him wine, Mum. Fll engage there's no Tar in that:" 
so, the sergeant thanked him and said that as he pre- 
ferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it 
was equally convenient. When it was given him, he 
drank his Majesty's health and compliments of the 
season, and took it all at a mouthful and smacked his 
lips. 

"Good stuff , eh, sergeant ?" said Mr. Pumblechook. 

" I'll tell you something," returned the sergeant; " I 
suspect that stuff's of your providing." 

Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, "Ay, 
ay? Why?" 

" Because," returned the sergeant, clapping him on 
the shoulder, "you're a man that knows what's what." 

"D'ye think so?" said Mr. Pumblechook, with his 
former laugh. " Have another glass ! " 

" With you. Hob and nob," returned the sergeant. 
" The top of mine to the foot of yours — the foot of yours 
to the top of mine — Ring once, ring twice — the best 
tune on the Musical Glasses ! Your health. May you 
live a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of 
the right sort than you are at the present moment of 
your life ! " 

The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed 
quite ready for another glass. I noticed that Mr. 
Pumblechook in his hospitality appeared to forget 
that he had made a present of the wine, but took the 
bottle from Mrs. Joe, and had all the credit of handing 
it about in a gush of joviality. Even I got some. And 
he was so very free of the wine that he even called for 
the other bottle and handed that about with the same 
liberality, when the first was gone. 

As I watched them while they all stood clustering 
about the forge, enjoying themselves so much, I thought 
what terrible good sauce for a dinner my fugitive 
friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed 
themselves a quarter so much, before the entertain- 
ment was brightened with the excitement he furnished. 
And now, when they were all in lively anticipation of 
" the two villains" being taken, and when the bellows 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 31 

seemed to roar for the fugitive^ the fire to flare for 
them, the smoke to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe 
to hammer and clink for them, and all the murky 
shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the 
blaze rose and sank and the red-hot sparks dropped 
and died, the pale afternoon outside, almost seemed in 
my pitying young fancy to have turned pale on their 
account, poor wretches. 

At last, Joe's job was done, and the ringing and roar- 
ing stopped. As Joe got on his coat, he mustered cour- 
age to propose that some of us should go down with the 
soldiers and see what came of the bunt. Mr. Pumble- 
chook and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe 
and ladies' society; but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if 
Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable, arid would take 
me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got 
leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe's curiosity to 
know all about it and how it ended. As it was, she 
merely stipulated, "If you bring the boy back with his 
head blown to bits by a* musket, don't look to me to put 
it together again." 

The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and 
parted from Mr. Pumblechook as from a comrade; 
though I doubt if he were quite as fully sensible of that 
gentleman's merits under arid conditions, as when some- 
thing moist was going. His men resumed their mus- 
kets and fell in. Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received 
strict charge to keep in the rear, and to speak no word 
after we reached the marshes. When we were all out 
in the raw air and were steadily moving towards our 
business, I treasonably whispered to Joe, " I hope, Joe, 
we shan't find them." And Joe whispered to me, " I'd 
give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip." 

We were joined by no stragglers from th& village, for 
the weather was cold and threatening, the way dreary, 
the footing bad, darkness coming on, and the people 
had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A 
few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after 
us, but none came out. We passed the finger-post, and 
held straight on to the churchyard. There, we were 
stopped a few minutes by a signal from the sergeant's 
hand, while two or three of his men dispersed them- 
selves among the graves, and also examined the porch. 
They came in again without finding anything, and 



32 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

then we struck out on the open marshes, through the 
gate at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came 
rattling against us here on the east wind, and Joe took 
me on his back. 

Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness 
where they little thought I had been within eight or nine 
hours and had seen both men hiding, I considered for 
the first time, with great dread, if we should come upon 
them, would my particular convict suppose that it was 
I who had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me 
if I was a deceiving imp, and he had said I should be a 
fierce young hound if I joined the hunt against him. 
Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in 
treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him? 

It was of no use asking myself this question now. There 
I was, on Joe's back, and there was Joe beneath me, 
charging at the ditches like a hunter, and stimulating 
Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and to 
keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us ex- 
tending into a pretty wide line with an interval between 
man and man. We were taking the course I had begun 
with, and from which I had diverged in the mist. 
Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had 
dispelled it. Under the low red glare of sunset, the 
beacon, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, 
and the opposite shore of the river, were plain, though 
all of a watery lead colour. 

With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe's 
broad shoulder, I looked all about for any sign of the 
convicts. I could see none, I could hear none. Mr. 
Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by his 
blowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by 
this time, and could dissociate them from the object of 
pursuit. Lgot a dreadful start, when I thought I heard 
the file still going; but it was only a sheep bell. The 
sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at us; 
and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and 
sleet, stared angrily as if they held us responsible for 
both annoyances; but, except these things, and the shud- 
der of the dying day in every blade of grass, there was 
no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes. 

The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the 
old Battery, and we were moving on a little way behind 
them, when, all of a sudden, we all stopped. For,, there 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 33 

had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain a long 
shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards 
the east, but it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed 
to be two or more shouts raised together — if one might 
judge from a confusion in the sound. 

To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were 
speaking under their breath, when Joe and I came up. 
After another moment's listening, Joe (who was a good 
judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) 
agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the 
sound should not be answered, but that the course should 
be changed, and that his men should make towards it 
" at the double." So we slanted to the right (where the 
East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that 
I had to hold on tight to keep my seat. 

It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the 
only two words he spoke all the time, " a Winder." 
Down banks and up banks, and over gates, and splash- 
ing into dykes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no 
man cared where he went. As we came nearer to the 
shouting, it became more and more apparent that it was 
made by more than one voice. Sometimes, it seemed 
to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. When 
it broke out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater 
rate than ever, and we after them. After a while, we 
had so run it down, that we could hear one voice call- 
ing "Murder!" and another voice, "Convicts! Run- 
aways! Guard! This way for the runaway convicts!" 
Then both voices would seem to be stifled in a struggle, 
and then would break out again. And when it had 
come to this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too. 

The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise 
quite down, and two of his men ran in close upon him. 
Their pieces were cocked and levelled when we all 
run in. 

"Here are both men!" panted the sergeant, strug- 
gling at the bottom of a ditch. "Surrender, you two ! 
and confound you for two wild beasts! Come 
asunder!" 

Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths 
were being sworn, and blows were being struck, when 
some more men went down into the ditch to help the 
sergeant^ and dragged out, separately, my convict and 
the other one. Both were bleeding and panting and 
vol. i. 3 



34 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

execrating and struggling; but of course I knew them 
both directly. 

" Mind! " said my convict, wiping blood from his face 
with his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his 
fingers; "I took him! I give him up to you! Mind 
that!" 

"It's not much to be particular about/'' said the ser- 
geant; "it'll do you small good, my man, being in the 
same plight yourself. Handcuffs there! " 

" I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want 
it to do me more good than it does now," said my con- 
vict, with a greedy laugh. " I took him. He knows 
it. That's enough for me." 

The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addi- 
tion to the old bruised left side of his face, seemed to 
bruised and torn all over. He could not so much as 
get his breath to speak, until they were both separately 
handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself 
from falling. 

" Take notice guard — he tried to murder me," were 
his first words. 

"Tried to murder him?" said my convict, disdain- 
fully. " Try, and not do it? I took him, and giv' him 
up; that's what I done. I not only prevented him get- 
ting off the marshes, but I dragged him here — dragged 
him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if 
you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its 
gentleman again, through me. Murder him? Worth 
my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse 
and drag him back ! " 

The other one still gasped, " He tried — he tried — to 
— murder me. Bear — bear witness." 

"Lookee here!" said my convict to the sergeant. 
" Single-handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made 
a dash and I done it. I could ha' got clear of these 
death-cold flats likewise — look at my leg : you won't 
find much iron on it — if I hadn't made discovery that 
he was here. Let him go free? Let him profit by the 
means as I found out? Let him make a tool of me 
afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had 
died at the bottom there; " and he made an emphatic 
swing at the ditch with his manacled hands; " I'd have 
held to him with that grip, that you should have been 
§afe to find him in my hold." 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 35 

The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme hor- 
ror of his companion, repeated, " He tried to murder me. 
I should have been a dead man if you had not come up." 

"He lies!" said my convict, with fierce energy. 
" He's a liar born, and he'll die a liar. Look at his face; 
ain't it written there? Let him turn those eyes of his 
on me. I defy him to do it." 

The other, with an effort at a scornful smile — which 
could not, however, collect the nervous working of 
his mouth into any set expression, looked at the soldiers, 
and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but 
certainly did not look at the speaker. 

"Do you see him?" pursued my convict, "Do you 
see what a villain he is ? Do you see those grovelling and 
wandering eyes? That's how he looked when we were 
tried together. He never looked at me." 

The other, always working and working his dry lips 
and turning his eyes restlessly about him far and near, 
did at last turn them for a moment on the speaker, 
with the words, "You are not much to look at," and 
with a half -taunting glance at the bound hands. At 
that point, my convict became so frantically exasper- 
ated, that he would have rushed upon him but for the 
interposition of the soldiers. "Didn't I tell you," said 
the other convict then, "that he would murder me, if 
he could?" And any one could see that he shook with 
fear, and that there broke out upon his lips, curious 
white flakes, like thin snow. 

" Enough of this parley," said the sergeant. " Light 
those torches." 

As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of 
a gun, went down on his knee to open it, my convict 
looked round him for the first time, and saw me. I had 
alighted from Joe's back on the brink of the ditch when 
we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him 
eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my 
hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him 
to see me, that I might try to assure him of my inno- 
cence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even 
comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that 
[ did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. 
But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I 
could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, 
as having been more attentive. 



36 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and 
lighted three or four torches, and took one himself and 
distributed the others. It had been almost dark before, 
but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards very 
dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers 
standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently 
we saw other torches kindled at some distance behind 
us, and others on the marshes on the opposite bank of 
the river. "All right," said the sergeant. "March." 

We had not gone far when three cannon were fired 
ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst some- 
thing inside my ear. "You are expected on board," 
said the sergeant to my convict; "they know you are 
coming. Don't straggle, my man. Close up here." 

The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded 
by a separate guard. I had hold of Joe's hand now, 
and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had 
been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, 
so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably 
good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a 
divergence here and there where a dyke came, with a 
miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. 
When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming 
in after us. The torches we carried, dropped great 
blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, 
too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing 
else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air 
about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners 
seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in 
the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, be- 
cause of their lameness; and they were so spent, that 
two or three times we had to halt while they rested. 

After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a 
rough wooden hut and a landing-place. There was a 
guard in the hut, and they challenged, and the sergeant 
answered. Then, we went into the hut where there 
was a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright 
fire, and a lamp, and a stand of muskets, and a drum, 
and a low wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle 
without the machinery, capable of holding about a 
dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who 
lay upon it in their great-coats, were not much inter- 
ested in us, but just lifted their heads and took a 
sleepy stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 37 

made some kind of a report, and some entry in a book, 
and then the convict whom I call the other convict 
was drafted off with his guard to go on board first. 

My convict never looked at me, except that once. 
While we stood in the hut, he stood before the fire 
looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up his feet by 
turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them 
as if he pitied them for their recent adventures. Sud- 
denly, he turned to the sergeant, and remarked : 

"I wish to say something respecting this escape. It 
may prevent some persons laying under suspicion 
alonger me." 

" You can say what you like," returned the sergeant, 
standing coolly looking at him with his arms folded, 
"but you have no call to say it here. You'll have 
opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it, 
before it's done with, you know." 

"I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. 
A man can't starve; at least I can't. I took some 
wittles, up at the willage over yonder — where the 
church stands a'most out on the marshes." 

"You mean stole," said the sergeant. 

"And I'll tell you where from. From the black- 
smith's." 

"Halloa!" said the sergeant, staring at Joe. 

" Halloa, Pip! " said Joe, staring at me. 

" It was some broken wittles — that's what it was — and 
a dram of liquor, and a pie." 

" Have you happened to miss such an article as a trie, 
blacksmith ? " asked the sergeant, confidentially. 

"My wife did, at the very moment when you came 
in. Don't you know, Pip?" 

"So," said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a 
moody manner, and without the least glance at me; "so 
you're the blacksmith, are you? Then I'm sorry to say, 
I've eat your pie." 

"God knows you're welcome to it — so far as it was 
ever mine," returned Joe, with a saving remembrance 
of Mrs. Joe. "We don't know what you have done, 
but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor 
miserable fellow-creatur. — Would us, Pip?" 

The something that I had noticed before, clicked in 
the man's throat again, and he turned his back. The 
boat had returned, and his guard were ready, so we fol- 



88 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

lowed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes 
and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was 
rowed by a crew of convicts like himself. No one 
seemed surprised to see him, or interested in seeing 
him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a 
word, except that somebody in the boat growled as if to 
dogs, "Give way, you!" which was the signal for the 
dip of the oars. By the light of the torches, we saw the 
black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the 
shore, like a wicked Noah's ark. Cribbed and barred 
and moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship 
seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. 
We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken 
up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the 
torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, 
as if it were all over with him. 



CHAPTER VI. 



MY state of mind regarding the pilfering from which 
I had been so unexpectedly exonerated, did not 
impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope it had some 
dregs of good at the bottom of it. 

I do not recal that I felt any tenderness of conscience 
in reference to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found 
out was lifted off me. But I loved Joe — perhaps for no 
better reason in those early days than because the dear 
fellow let me love him — and, as to him, my inner self 
was not so easily composed. It was much upon my 
mind (particularly when I first saw him looking about 
for his file) that I ought to tell Joe the whole truth. 
Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that 
if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The 
fear of losing Joe's confidence, and of thenceforth sit- 
ting in the chimney corner at night staring drearily at 
my for ever lost companion and friend, tied up my 
tongue. I morbidly represented to myself that if Joe 
knew it, I never afterwards could see him at the fireside 
feeling his fair whisker, without thinking that he was 
meditating on it. That, if Joe knew it, I never afterwards 
could see him glance, however casually, at yesterday's 
meat or pudding when it came on to-day's table, without 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 39 

thinking that he was debating; whether I had been in the 
pantry. That, if Joe knew it, and at any subsequent 
period of our joint domestic life remarked that his beer 
was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected Tar in 
it, would bring a rush of blood to my face. In a word, 
I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I 
had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to 
be wrong. I had had no intercourse with the world at 
that time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants 
who act in this manner. Quite an untaught genius, I 
made the discovery of the line of action for myself. 

As I was sleepy before we were far away from the 
prison-ship, Joe took me on his back again and carried 
me home. He must have had a tiresome journey of it, 
for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very 
bad temper that if the Church had been thrown open, 
he would probably have excommunicated the whole ex- 
pedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In his lay 
capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to 
such an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off 
to be dried at the kitchen fire, the circumstantial evi- 
dence on his trousers would have hanged him if it had 
been a capital offence. 

By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor 
like a little drunkard, through having been newly set 
upon my feet, and through having been fast asleep, and 
through waking in the heat and lights and noise of 
tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy 
thump between the shoulders, and the restorative 
exclamation l ' Yah ! "Was there ever such a boy as this ! " 
from my sister, I found Joe telling them about the con- 
vict's confession, and all the visitors suggesting differ- 
ent ways by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. 
Pumblechook made out, after carefully surveying the 
premises, that he had first got upon the roof of the 
forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and 
had then let himself down the kitchen chimney by a 
rope made of his bedding cut into strips; and as Mr. 
Pumblechook was very positive and drove his own 
chaise-cart — over everybody — it was agreed that it must 
be so. Mr. Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out " No! " with 
the feeble malice of a tired man; but, as he had no 
theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously set at 
naught— not to mention his smoking hard behind, as h§ 



40 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

stood with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp 
out: which was not calculated to inspire confidence. 

This was all I heard that night before my sister 
clutched me, as a slumberous offence to the company's 
eyesight, and assisted me up to bed with such a strong 
hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be 
dangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My 
state of mind, as I have described it, began before I was 
up in the morning, and lasted long after the subject had 
died out, and had ceased to be mentioned saving on ex- 
ceptional occasions. 



CHAPTER VII. 



AT the time when I stood in the churchyard, reading 
_ the family tombstones, I had just enough learning 
to be able to spell them out. My construction even of 
their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read 
"wife of the Above" as a complimentary reference to 
my father's exaltation to a better world ; and if any 
one of my deceased's relations had been referred to as 
"Below," I have no doubt I should have formed the 
worst opinions of that member of the family. Neither 
were my notions of the theological positions to which 
my Catechism bound me, at all accurate ; for, I have a 
lively remembrance that I supposed my declaration 
that I was to "walk in the same all the days of my 
life," laid me under an obligation always to go through 
the village from our house in one particular direction, 
and never to vary it by turning down by the wheel- 
wright's or up by the mill. 

When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to 
Joe, and until I could assume that dignity I was not to 
be what Mrs. Joe called "Pompeyed," or (as I render it) 
pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about 
the forge, but if any neighbour happened to want an 
extra boy to frighten birds, or pick up stones, or do any 
such job, I was favoured with the employment. In 
order, however, that our superior position might not be 
compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the 
kitchen mantel-shelf, into which it was publicly made 
known that all my earnings were dropped. I have an 
impression that tney were to be contributed eventually 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 41 

towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I 
know I had no hope of any personal participation in the 
treasure. 

Mr. Wopsle's great -aunt kept an evening school in 
the village ; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old 
woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who 
used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in 
the society of youth who paid two-pence per week 
each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. 
She rented a small cottage, and Mr. Wopsle had the 
room up-stairs, where we students used to overhear him 
reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, 
and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. There was a 
fiction that Mr. Wopsle " examined" the scholars, once 
a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn 
up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark An- 
tony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always 
followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I 
particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge, throw- 
ing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and 
taking the War denouncing trumpet with a withering 
look. It was not with me then, as it was in later life, 
when I fell into the society of the Passions, and com- 
pared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the dis- 
advantage of both gentlemen. 

Mr. Wopsle's great aunt, besides keeping this Educa- 
tional Institution, kept in the same room — a little gen- 
eral shop. She had no idea what stock she had, or what 
the price of anything in it was ; but there was a little 
greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which 
served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle 
Biddy arranged all the shop transactions. Biddy was 
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter ; I confess 
myself quite unequal to the working out of the problem, 
wnat relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She was an 
orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by 
hand. She was most noticeable, I thought in respect of 
her extremities; for her hair always wanted brushing, 
her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes 
always wanted mending and pulling up at heel. This 
description must be received with a week-day limita- 
tion. On Sunday she went to church elaborated. 

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of 
Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled 



42 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; 
getting considerably worried and scratched by every 
letter. After that, I fell among those thieves, the nine 
figures, who seemed every evening to do something 
new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But, 
at last I began, in a purblind, groping way, to read, 
write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale. 

One night I was sitting in the chimney-corner with 
my slate expending great efforts on the production of a 
letter to Joe. I think it must have been a full year after 
our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long time after, 
and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet 
on the hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an 
hour or two to print and smear this epistle: 

" Ml deEr JO i opE U r krWitE wEll i opE i shAl 
soN" B haBelL 4 2 teeDge U JO aN theN wE shOrl b 
sO glOdd aN wEn i M preNgtD 2 u JO woT larX an 
blEvE ME inF xn PiP." 

There was no indispensable necessity for my com- 
municating with Joe by letter, inasmuch as he sat be- 
side me and we were alone. But I delivered this writ- 
ten communication (slate and all) with my own hand, 
and Joe received it as a miracle of erudition. 

"I say, Pip, old chap!" cried Joe, opening his blue 
eyes wide, "what a scholar you are. Ain't you?" 

" I should like to be," said I, glancing at the slate as 
he held it : with a misgiving that the writing was 
rather hilly. 

" Why, here's a J," said Joe, " and a O equal to any- 
think! Here's a J and a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe." 

I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater ex- 
tent than this monosyllable, and I had observed at 
church last Sunday, when I accidentally held our 
Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his 
convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. 
Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding 
out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin 

Juite at the beginning, I said, " Ah! but read the rest, 
oe." 

"The rest, eh, Pip?" said Joe, looking at it with a 

slow, searching eye, "One, two, three. Why, here's 

three Js, and three Os, and three J-O, Joes, in it, Pip?" 

I leaned over Joe, and with the aid of my forefinger, 

read him the whole letter. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 43 

" Astonishing! " said Joe, when I had finished. " You 
are a scholar." 

"How do you spell Gargery, Joe?" J asked him with 
a modest patronage. 

" I don't spell it at all," said Joe. 

" But supposing you did? " 

"It can't be supposed," said Joe. " Tho' Fm uncom- 
mon fond of reading, too." 

" Are you, Joe?" 

"On-common. Give me," said Joe, " a good book, or 
a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, 
and I ask no better. Lord! " he continued, after rubbing 
his knees a little, " when you do come to a J and a O, 
and says you, ' Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,' how interest- 
ing reading is ! " 

I derived from this that Joe's education, like Steam, 
was yet in its infancy. Pursuing the subject, I in- 
quired: 

"Didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as 
little as me?" 

" No, Pip." 

" Why didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you 
were as little as me?" 

"Well, Pip," said Joe, taking up the poker, and set- 
tling himself to his usual occupation when he was 
thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire between the lower 
bars, "I'll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given to 
drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he ham- 
mered away at my mother most onmerciful. It were 
a'most the only hammering he did, indeed, 'xcepting at 
myself. And he hammered at me with a wigour only 
to be equalled by the wigour with which he didn't ham- 
mer at his anvil. — You're a listening and understand- 
ing, Pip?" 

"Yes, Joe." 

" 'Consequence, my mother and me we ran away 
from my father several times; and then my n^other, 
she'd go out to work, and she'd say, 'Joe,' she'a say, 
' now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,' 
and she'd put me to school. But my father were that 
good in his hart that he couldn't abear to be without us. 
So, he'd come with a most tremenjous crowd and make 
such a row at the doors of the houses, where we was, 
that they used to be obliged to have no more to do with 



44 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

us and to give us up to him. And then he took us home 
and hammered us. Which, you see, Pip/' said Joe, paus- 
ing in his meditative raking of the fire, and looking at 
me, "were a drawback on my learning." 

" Certainly, poor Joe! " 

" Though mind you, Pip/' said Joe, with a judicial 
touch or two of the poker on the top bar, "rendering 
unto all their doo, and maintaining equal justice be- 
twixt man and man, my father were that good in his 
hart, don't you see?" 

I didn't see; but I didn't say so. 

" Well! " Joe pursued, " somebody must keep the pot 
abiling, Pip, or the pot won't bile, don't you know? 

I saw that, and said so. 

" ' Consequence, my father didn't make objections to 
my going to work; so I went to work at my present 
calling, which were his too, if he would have followed 
it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip. In 
time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went 
off in a purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to 
have had put upon his tombstone that Whatsume'er 
the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that 
good in his hart." 

Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride 
and careful perspicuity, that I asked him if he had 
made it himself? 

"I made it," said Joe, "my own self. I made it in a 
moment. It was like striking out a horseshoe com- 
plete, in a single blow. I never was so much sur- 
prised in all my life — couldn't credit my own ed — to tell 
you the truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As 
I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had 
it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut it how you 
will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to men- 
tion bearers, all the money that could be spared were 
wanted for my mother. She were in poor elth, and 
quite broke. She waren't long of following, poor soul, 
and ner share of peace come round at last." 

Joe's blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed, 
first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncon- 
genial and uncomfortable manner, with the round 
knob on the top of the poker. 

" It were but lonesome then," said Joe, " living here 
alone, and I got acquainted with your sister. Now, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 45 

Pip;" Joe looked firmly at me, as if he knew I was not 
going to agree with him: " your sister is a fine figure 
of a woman." 

I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious 
state of doubt. 

" Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world's 
opinions, on that subject may be, Pip, your sister is," 
Joe tapped the top bar with the poker after every word 
following,, " a — fine — figure — of — a — woman! " 

I could think of nothing better to say than "I am 
glad you think so, Joe." 

"So am I," returned Joe, catching me up. "Jam 
glad I think so, Pip. A little redness, or a little matter 
of Bone, here or there, what does it signify to Me?" 

I sagaciously observed, if it didn't signify to him, to 
whom did it signify? 

"Certainly!" assented Joe. "That's it. You're 
right, old chap! When I got acquainted with your 
sister, it were the talk how she was bringing you up by 
hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and 
I said, along with all the folks. As to you," Joe pur- 
sued, with a countenance expressive of seeing some- 
thing very nasty indeed: "if you could have been 
aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear 
me, you'd have formed the most contemptible opinions 
of yourself!" 

Not exactly relishing this, I said, " Never mind me, 
Joe." 

"But I did mind you, Pip," he returned, with 
tender simplicity. "When I offered to your sister to 
keep company, and to be asked in church at such times 
as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I 
said to her, ' And bring the poor little child. God bless 
the poor little child,' I said to your sister, ' there's room 
for him at the forge!'" 

I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged 
Joe round the neck: who dropped the poker to hug me, 
and to say. "Ever the best of friends; ain't us, Pip? 
Don't cry, old chap!" 

When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed: 

" Well, you see, Pip, and here we are ! That's 
about where it lights ; here we are ! Now, when 
vou take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I tell you 
beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe 



46 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

mustn't see too much of what we're up to. It must.be 
done, as I may say, on the sly. And why on the sly? I'll 
tell you why, Pip." 

He had taken up the poker again; without which, I 
doubt if he could have proceeded in his demonstration. 

"Your sister is given to government." 

"Given to government, Joe?" I was startled, for I 
had some shadowy idea (and I am afraid I must add, 
hope) that Joe had divorced her in favour of the Ad- 
miralty, or Treasury. 

" Given to government," said Joe. "Which I meanter- 
say the government of you and myself." 

"Oh!" 

" And she ain't over partial to having scholars on the 
premises," Joe continued, "and in partickler would not 
be over partial to my being a scholar, for fear as I 
might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don't you see ? " 

I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as 
far as " Why " when Joe stopped me. 

"Stay a bit. I know what you're a going to say, 
Pip; stay a bit ! I don't deny that your sister comes 
the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I don't deny that 
she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down 
upon us heavy. At such times as when your sister is on 
the Ram-page, Pip," Joe sank his voice to a whisper 
and glanced at the door, "candour compels fur to ad- 
mit that she is a Buster." 

Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least 
twelve capital Bs. 

"Why don't I rise? That were your observation 
when I broke it off, Pip ?" 

"Yes, Joe." 

"Well," said Joe, passing the poker into his left 
hand, that he might feel his whisker; and I had no hope 
of him whenever he took to that placid occupation; 
"your sister's a master-mind. . A master-mind." 

"What's that ?" I asked, in some hope of bringing 
him to a stand. But Joe was readier witn his definition 
than I had expected, and completely stopped me by 
arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look, 
" Her." 

" And I ain't a master-mind," Joe resumed, when he 
had unfixed his look, and got back to his whisker. 
" And last of all, Pip— and this I want to say very se- 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 47 

rous to you, old chap — I see so much in my poor 
mother, of a woman drudging and slaving and break- 
ing her honest hart, and never getting no peace in her 
mortal days, that I'm dead af eerd of going wrong in the 
way of not doing what's right by a woman, and I'd fur 
rather of the two go wrong the 'tother way, and be a 
little ill-conwenienced myself. I wish it was only me 
that got put out, Pip; I wish there warn't no Tickler 
for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on myself; 
but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and 
I hope you'll overlook shortcomings." 

Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admira- 
tion of Joe from that night. We were equals afterwards, 
as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times 
when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I 
had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was 
looking up to Joe in iny heart. 

"However," said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; 
"here's the Dutch-clock a working himself up to being 
equal to strike Eight of 'em, and she's not come home 
yet ! I hope Uncle Pumblechook's mare mayn't have 
set a fore-foot on a piece o' ice, and gone down." 

Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumble- 
chook on market-days, to assist him in buying such 
household stuffs uid goods as required a woman's 
judgment; Uncle PumMechook being a bachelor and 
reposing no confidence^ in his domestic servant. This 
was market-day, and Mrs. Joe was out on one of these 
expeditions. 

Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we 
went to the door to listen for the chaise-cart. It was a 
dry cold night, and the wind blew keenly, and the frost 
was white and hard. A man would die to-night of lying 
out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at 
the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a 
man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, 
and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude. 

"Here comes the mare," said Joe, "ringing like a 
peal of bells ! " 

The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was 
quite musical, as she came along at a much brisker trot 
than usual. We got a chair out, ready for. Mrs. Joe's 
alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a 
bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen 



48 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

that nothing might be out of its place. When we had 
completed these preparations, they drove up, wrapped to 
the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle Pumble- 
chook was soon down too, covering the mare with a 
cloth, and we were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so 
much cold air in with us that it seemed to drive all the 
heat out of the fire. 

" Now," said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with 
haste and excitement, and throwing her bonnet 
back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings: 
" if this boy ain't grateful this night, he never will 
be!" 

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who 
was wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that 
expression. 

" It's only to be hoped," said my sister, " that he won't 
be Pompeyed. But I have my fears." 

" She ain't in that line, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. 
" She knows better." 

She ? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my 
lips and eyebrows, " She ? " Joe looked at me, making 
the motion with his lips and eyebrows "She?" My 
sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of his 
hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on 
such occasions, and looked at her. 

" Well? " said my sister, in her snappish way. " What 
are you staring at ? Is the house a-fire? " 

" — Which some individual," Joe politely hinted, 
" mentioned — she." 

" And she is a she, I suppose? " said my sister. " Un- 
less you call Miss Havisham a he. And I doubt if even 
you'll go so far as that." 

" Miss Havisham, up town?" said Joe. 

" Is there any Miss Havisham down town? " returned 
my sister. " She wants this boy to go and play there. 
And of course he's going. And he had better play there," 
said my sister, shaking her head at me as an encourage- 
ment to be extremely light and sportive, " or I'll work 
him." 

I had heard of Miss Havisham up town — everybody 
for miles round, had heard of Miss Havisham up town 
— as an immensely rich and grim old lady who lived in a 
large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and 
who led a life of seclusion. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 49 

" Well to be sure ! " said Joe, astounded. " I wonder 
how she come to know Pip! " 

" Noodle ! " cried my sister. " Who said she knew 
him?" 

" — Which some individual/' Joe again politely 
hinted, " mentioned that she wanted him to go and 
play there." 

"And couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he 
knew of a boy to go and play there ? Isn't it just barely 
possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be a tenant of 
hers, and that he may sometimes — we won't say quar- 
terly or half yearly, for that would be requiring too much 
of you — but sometimes — go there to pay his rent ? And 
couldn't she then ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of 
a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle Pumble- 
chook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us 
— though you may not think it, Joseph," in a tone of 
the deepest reproach, as if he were the most callous of 
nephews, " then mention this boy, standing Prancing 
here" — which I solemnly declare I was not doing — 
" that I have for ever been a willing slave to ? " 

"Good again!" cried Uncle Pumblechook. "Well 
put ! Prettily pointed ! Good indeed ! Now, Joseph, 
you know the case." 

"No, Joseph," said my sister, still in a reproachful 
manner, while Joe apologetically drew the back of his 
hand across and across his nose, "you do not yet — 
though you may not think it — know the case. You may 
consider that you do, but you do not, Joseph. For you 
do not know that Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible 
that for anything we can tell, this boy's fortune may be 
made by his going to Miss Havisham's, has offered to 
take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and 
to keep him to-night, and to take him with his own 
hands to Miss Havisham's to-morrow morning. And 
Lor-a-mussy me! " cried my sister, casting off her bonnet 
in sudden desperation, "here I stand talking to mere 
Mooncalf s, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the 
mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed 
with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole 
of his foot!" 

With that, she pounced on me, like an eagle on a 
lamb, and my face was squeezed into wooden bowls in 
sinks, and my head was put under taps of water-butts, 
vol. i. A 



50 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and 
thumped, and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was 
quite beside myself. (I may here remark that I suppose 
myself to be better acquainted than any living authority, 
with the ridgy effect of a wedding-ring, passing unsym- 
pathetically over the human countenance.) 

When my ablutions were completed, I was put into 
clean linen of the stiffest character, like a young pen- 
itent into sack-cloth, and was trussed up in my tightest 
and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered over to Mr. 
Pumblechook, who formally received rue as if he were 
the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I 
knew he had been dying to make all along : "Boy, be 
for ever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them 
which brought you up by hand!" 

"Good-bye, Joe!" 

" God bless you, Pip, old chap!" 

I had never parted from him before, and what with 
my feelings and what with soap-suds, I could at first 
see no stars from the chaise-cart. But they twinkled 
out one by one, without throwing any light on the ques- 
tions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havi- 
sham's, and what on earth I was expected to play at. 



CHAPTER VIII 



MR. PUMBLECHOOK'S premises in the High-street 
of the market town, were of a peppercorny and 
farinaceous character, as the premises of a corn-chand- 
ler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he 
must be a very happy man indeed, to have so many lit- 
tle drawers in his shop ; and I wondered when I peeped 
into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the tied-up 
brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-seeds 
and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of 
those jails, and bloom. 

It was in the early morning after my arrival that T en- 
tertained this speculation. On the previous night, I had 
been sent straight to bed in an attic with a sloping roof, 
which was so low in the corner where the bedstead was, 
that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my 
eyebrows. In the same early morning, I discovered l 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 51 

singular affinity between seeds and corduroys. Mr. 
Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did his shopman; 
and somehow, there was a'general air and flavour about 
the corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a 
general air and flavour about the seeds, so much in the 
nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew which was 
which. The same opportunity served me for noticing 
that Mr. Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business 
by looking across the street at the saddler, who ap- 
peared to transact his business by keeping his eye on 
the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by put- 
ting his hands in his pockets and contemplating the 
baker, who in his turn folded his arms and stared at the 
grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at the chem- 
ist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk 
with a magnifying glass at his eye, and always in- 
spected by a group in smock-frocks poring over him 
through the glass of his shop-window, seemed to be 
about the only person in the High-street whose trade 
engaged his attention. 

Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o'clock 
in the parlour behind the shop, while the shopman took 
his mug of tea and hunch of bread-and-butter on a sack 
of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr. Pumble- 
chook wretched company. Besides being possessed by 
my sister's idea that a mortifying and penitential char- 
acter ought to be imparted to my diet — besides giving 
me as much crumb as possible in combination with as 
little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water 
into my milk that it would have been more candid to 
have left the milk out altogether — his conversation con- 
sisted of nothing but arithmetic. On my politely bid- 
ding him Good morning, he said, pompously, " Seven 
times nine, boy ! " And how should J be able to answer, 
dodged in that way, in a strange place, on an empty 
stomach ! I was hungry, but before I had swallowed a 
morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through 
the breakfast. " Seven ?" " And four ?" And eight ?" 
"And six?" "And two?" "And ten ?" And so on. 
And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much 
as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next 
came ; while he sat at his ease guessing nothing, and 
eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I may be allowed the 
expression) a gorging and gormandising manner. 



52 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o'clock 
came and we started for Miss Havisham's ; though I 
was not at all at my ease regarding the manner in 
which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof. 
Within a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havi- 
sham's house, which was of old brick, and dismal, and 
had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows 
had been walled up ; of those that remained, all the 
lower were rustily barred. There was a court-yard in 
front, and that was barred ; so, we had to wait, after 
ringing the bell, until some one should come to open it. 
While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. 
Pumblechook said, "And fourteen?" but I pretended 
not to hear him), and saw that at the side of the house 
there was a large brewery. No brewing was going on 
in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long time. 

A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded 
"What name?" To which my conductor replied, 
"Pumblechook." The voice returned, "Quite right," 
and the window was shut again, and a young lady came 
across the court-yard, with keys in her hand. 

" This," said Mr. Pumblechook, " is Pip." 

"This is Pip, is it?" returned the young lady, who 
was very pretty and seemed very proud ; " come in, 
Pip." 

Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stop- 
ped him with the gate. 

" Oh !" she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Havi- 
sham?" 

" If Miss Havisham wishes to see me," returned Mr. 
Pumblechook, discomfited. 

" Ah ! " said the girl; " but you see she don't." 

She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible 
way, that Mr. Pumblechook, though in a condition of 
ruffled dignity, could not protest. But he eyed me 
severely — as if I had done anything to him ! — and 
departed with the words reproachfully delivered: "Boy! 
Let your behaviour here be a credit unto them which 
brought you up by hand ! " I was not free from appre- 
hension that he would come back to propound through 
the gate, "And sixteen ?" But he didn't. 

My young conductress locked the gate, and we 
went across the court-yard. It was paved and clean, 
but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 53 

buildings had a little lane of communication with it; 
and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all 
the brewery beyond, stood open, away to the high en- 
closing wall; and all was empty and disused. The cold 
wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the 
gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out 
at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind 
in the rigging of a ship at sea. 

She saw me looking at it, and she said, " You could 
drink without hurt all the strong beer that's brewed 
there now, boy." 

" I should think I could, miss," said I, in a shy way. 

" Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would 
turn out sour, boy; don't you think so ?" 

"It looks like it, miss." 

"Not that anybody means to try," she added, "for 
that's all done with, and the place will stand as 
idle as it is till it falls. As to strong beer, there's 
enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor 
House." 

" Is that the name of this house, miss ?" 

" One of its names, boy." 

"It has more than one, then, miss ?" 

" One more. Its other name was Satis; which is 
Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew or all three — or all one to 
me — for enough." 

" Enough House," said I : "that's a curious name, 



miss." 



" Yes," she replied; " but it meant more than it said. 
It meant, when it was given, that whoever had this 
house, could want nothing else. They must have been 
easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But don't 
loiter, boy." 

Though she called me "boy" so often, and with a 
carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was 
about my own age. She seemed much older than I, of 
course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; 
and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one- 
and-twenty, and a queen. 

We went into the house by a side door — the great 
front entrance had two chains across it outside 
— and the first thing I noticed was, that the pas- 
sages were all dark, and that she had left a candle 
burning there. She took it up, and we went through 



54 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

dark passages and up a staircase, and still it was all 
dark, and only the candle lighted us. 

At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, 
" Go in. " 

I answered more in shyness than politeness, " After 
you, miss." 

To this, she returned : " Don't be ridiculous, boy; I 
am not going in." And scornfully walked away, and 
— what was worse — took the candle with her. 

This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. 
However, the only thing to be done being to knock at 
the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. 
I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty 
large room, well lighted with wax candles. No 
glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a 
dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, though 
much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to 
me. But prominent in it was a draped table with a 
gilded looking-glass, and that I made out at first sight 
to be a fine lady's dressing-table. 

Whether I should have made out this object so soon, 
if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot 
say. In an armchair, with an elbow resting on the 
table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the 
strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. 

She was dressed in rich materials — satins, and lace, 
and silks — all white. Her shoes were white. And 
she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, 
and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair 
was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck 
and on her hands, and some other jewels lay spark- 
ling on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the 
dress she wore, and half -packed trunks were scattered 
about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had 
but one shoe on — the other was on the table near her 
hand — her veil was but half arranged, her watch and 
chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom 
lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and 
gloves, and some flowers, and a Prayer-book, all con- 
fusedly heaped about the looking-glass. 

It was not in the first few moments that I saw all 
these things, though I saw more of them in the first 
moments than might be supposed. But, I saw that 
everything within my view which ought to be white 3 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 55 

had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and 
was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the 
bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the 
flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness 
of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put 
upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that 
the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to 
skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some 
ghastly wax-work at the Fair, representing I know not 
what impossible personage lying in state. Once, I had 
been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a 
skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress, that had been dug 
out of a vault under the church pavement. Now, wax- 
work and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that 
moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if I 
could. 

" Who is it? " said the lady at the table. 

"Pip, ma'am." 

"Pip?" 

" Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come — to play." 

" Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close." 

It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, 
that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, 
and saw that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes 
to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at 
twenty minutes to nine. 

" Look at me," said Miss Havisham. "You are not 
afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since 
you were born?" 

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling 
the enormous lie comprehended in the answer "No." 

"Do you know what I touch here?" she said, laying 
her hands, one upon the other, on her left side. 

' ' Yes, ma'am. " (It made me think of the young man. ) 

"What do I touch?" 

"Your heart." 

"Broken!" 

She uttered the word with an eager look, and with 
strong emphasis, and with a weird smile that had a 
kind of boast in it. Afterwards, she kept her hands 
there for a little while, and slowly took them away 
as if they were heavy. 

"I am tired," said Miss Havisham. " I want diver- 
sion, and I have done with men and women. Play." 



56 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious 
reader, that she could hardly have directed an unfortu- 
nate boy to do anything in the wide world more difficult 
to be done under the circumstances. 

" I sometimes have sick fancies/' she went on, " and 
I have a sick fancy that I want to see some play. There, 
there ! " with an impatient movement of the fingers of 
her right hand; "play, play, play!" 

For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working 
me before my eyes, I had a desperate idea of starting 
round the room in the assumed character of Mr. 
Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But, I felt myself so 
unequal to the performance that I gave it up, and stood 
looking at Miss Havisham in what I suppose she took 
for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when we 
had taken a good look at each other: 

"Are you sullen and obstinate?" 

" No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I 
can't play just now. If you complain of me I shall get 
into trouble with my sister, so I would do it if I could; 
but it's so new here, and so strange, and so fine — and 

melancholy " I stopped, fearing I might say too 

much, or had already said it, and we took another look 
at each other. 

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from 
me, and looked at the dress she wore, and at the dress- 
ing table, and finally at herself in the looking- 
glass. 

" So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me: so 
strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both 
of us! Call Estella." 

As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, 
I thought she was still talking to herself, and kept quiet. 

"Call Estella," she repeated, flashing a look at me. 
" You can do that. Call Estella. At the door." 

To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an 
unknown house, bawling Estella to a scornful young 
lady neither visible nor responsive, and feeling it a 
dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost as 
bad as playing to order. But she answered at last, and 
her light came along the long dark passage like a star. 

Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took 
up a jewel from the table, and tried its effect upon her 
fair young bosom and against her pretty brown hair. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 57 

" Your own one day, my dear, and you will use it well. 
Let me see you play cards with this boy." 

" With this boy ! Why, he is a common labouring- 
boy ! " 

I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer — only it 
seemed so unlikely — "Well? You can break his heart." 

" What do you play, boy ?" asked Estellaof myself, 
with the greatest disdain. 

"Nothing but beggar my neighbour, Miss.*' 

"Beggar him," said Miss Havisham to Estella. So 
we sat down to cards. 

It was then I began to understand that everything in 
the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock a long 
time ago. I noticed that Miss Havisham put down the 
jewel exactly on the spot from which she had taken it 
up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dress- 
ing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once 
white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced 
down at the foot from which the shoe was absent, and 
saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now 
yellow, had been trodden ragged. Without this arrest 
of everything, this standing still of all the pale de- 
cayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on the 
collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, 
or the long veil so like a shroud. 

So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards ; the 
f rillings and trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like 
earthy paper. I knew nothing then of the discoveries 
that are occasionally made of bodies buried in ancient 
times, which fall to powder in the moment of being 
distinctly seen ; but, I have often thought since, that 
she must have looked as if the admission of the natural 
light of day would have struck her to dust. 

" He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy !" said Estella 
with disdain, before our first game was out. " And what 
coarse hands he has ! And what thick boots !" 

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands 
before ; but I began to consider them a very indifferent 
pair. Her contempt for me was so strong, that it be- 
came infectious, and I caught it. 

She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt as was 
only natural, when I knew she was lying in wait for 
me to do wrong ; and she denounced me for a stupid, 
clumsy labouring-boy. 



58 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" You say nothing of her/' remarked Miss Havisham 
to me, as she looked on. " She says many hard things 
of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think 
of her?" 

" I don't like to say/' I stammered. 

" Tell me in my ear/' said Miss Havisham, bending 
down. 

" I think she is very proud/' I replied in a whisper. 

" Anything else ? " 

"I think she is very pretty." 

" Anything else ?" 

" I think she is very insulting." (She was looking at 
me then, with a look of supreme aversion.) 

"Anything else ?" 

" I think I should like to go home." 

" And never see her again, though she is so pretty ?" 

" I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, 
but I should like to go home now." 

"You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham aloud. 
"Play the game out." 

Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have 
felt almost sure that Miss Havisham's face could not 
smile. It had dropped into a watchful and brooding ex- 
pression — most likely when all the things about her had 
become transfixed — and it looked as if nothing could 
ever lift it up again. Her chest had dropped, so that 
she stooped ; and her voice had dropped, so that 
she spoke low, and with a dead lull upon her ; alto- 
gether, she had the appearance of having dropped, body 
and soul, within and without, under the weight of a 
crushing blow. 

I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beg- 
gared me. She threw the cards down on the table when 
she had won them all, as if she despised them for having 
been won of me. 

"When shall I have you here again?" said Miss 
Havisham. " Let me think/' 

I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wed- 
nesday, when she checked me with her former im- 
patient movement of the fingers of her right hand. 

" There, there ! I know nothing of days of the week; 
I know nothing of weeks of the year. Come again after 
six days. You hear?" 

" Yes ? ma'am," 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 59 

" Estella, take him down. Let him have something 
to eat, and let him roam and look about him while he 
eats. Go, Pip." 

I followed the candle down, as I had followed the 
candle up, and she stood it in the place where we had 
found it. Until she opened the side entrance, I had 
fancied, without thinking about it, that it must neces- 
sarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite 
confounded me, and made me feel as if I had been in 
the candlelight of the strange room many hours 

"You are to wait here, you boy," said Estella; and 
disappeared and closed the door. 

I took the opportunity of being alone in the court- 
yard, to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. 
My opinion of those accessories was not favourable. 
They had never troubled me before, but they troubled 
me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask 
Joe why he had ever taught me to call those picture- 
cards, Jacks, which ought to be called knaves. I 
wished Joe had been rather more genteely brought up, 
and then I should have been so too. 

She came back, with some bread and meat and a litte 
mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of 
the yard, and gave me the bread and meat without 
looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in disgrace. 
I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, 
sorry — I cannot hit upon the right name for the smart — 
God knows what its name was — that tears started to 
my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the girl 
looked at me with a quick delight in having been the 
cause of them. This gave me power to keep them back 
and to look at her: so, she gave a contemptuous toss — 
but with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure 
that I was so wounded — and left me. 

But, when she was gone, I looked about me for a place 
to hide my face in, and got behind one of the gates 
in the brewery-lane, and leaned my sleeve against 
the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried. 
As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at 
my hair; so bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was 
the smart without a name, that needed counteraction. 

My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In 
the little world in which children have their existence 
whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely 



60 GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 

perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be 
only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; 
but the child is small, and its world is small, and its 
rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to 
scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself, I 
had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict 
with injustice. I had known, from the time when I 
could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and vio- 
lent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a 
profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, 
gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through 
all my punishments, disgraces, fasts and vigils, and 
other penitential performances, I had nursed this assur- 
ance: and to my communing so much with it, in a soli- 
tary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact 
that I was morally timid and very sensitive, 

I got rid of my injured feelings for the time, by kick- 
ing them into the brewery wall, and twisting them out 
of my hair, and then I smoothed my face with my 
sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and 
meat were acceptable, and the beer was warming and 
tingling, and I was soon in spirits to look about me. 

To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the 
pigeon-house in the brewery-yard, which had been 
blown crooked on its pole by some high wind, and would 
have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there 
had been any pigeons there to be rocked by it. But, 
there were no pigeons in the dove-cot, no horses in the 
stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in the store-house, 
no smells of grains and beer in the copper or the vat. 
All the uses and scents of the brewery might have 
evaporated with its last reek of smoke. In a by-yard, 
there was a wilderness of empty casks, which had a 
certain sour remembrance of better days lingering about 
them; but it was too sour to be accepted as a sample of 
the beer that was gone — and in this respect I remember 
those recluses as being like most others. 

Behind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank 
garden with an old wall : not so high but that I could 
struggle up and hold on long enough to look over it, and 
see that the rank garden was the garden of the house, 
and that it was overgrown with tangled weeds, but that 
there was a track upon the green and yellow paths, as 
if some one sometimes walked there, and that Estella 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 01 

was walking away from me even then. But she seemed 
to be everywhere. For, when I yielded to the tempta- 
tion presented by the casks, and began to walk on them, 
I saw her walking on them at the end of the yard of 
casks. She had her back towards me, and held her 
pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and 
never looked round, and passed out of my view directly. 
So, in the brewery itself — by which I mean the large 
paved lofty place in which they used to make the beer, 
and where the brewing utensils still were. When I 
first went into it, and, rather oppressed by its gloom, 
stood near the door looking about me, I saw her pass 
among the extinguished fires, and ascend some light 
iron stairs, and go out by a gallery high overhead, as 
jf she were going out into the sky. 

It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange 
thing happened to my fancy. I thought it a strange 
thing then, and I thought it a stranger thing long after- 
wards. I turned my eyes — a little dimmed by looking 
up at the frosty light — towards a great wooden beam in 
a low nook of the building near me on my right hand, 
and I saw a figure hanging there by the neck. A 
figure all in yellow white, with but one shoe to the feet; 
and it hung so, that I could see that the faded trimmings 
of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face 
was Miss Havisham's, with a movement going over the 
whole countenance as if she were trying to call to me. 
In the terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of 
being certain that it had not been there a moment 
before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. 
And my terror was greatest of all when I found no 
figure there. 

Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, 
the sight of people passing beyond the bars of the 
court-yard gate, and the reviving influence of the rest 
of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought 
me round. Even with those aids, I might not have 
come to myself as soon as I did, but that I saw Estella 
approaching with the keys, to let me out. She would 
have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I 
thought, if she saw me frightened; and she should have 
no fair reason. 

She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as 
if she rejoiced that my hands were so coarse and my 



62 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

boots were so thick, and she opened the gate, and stood 
holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, 
when she touched me with a taunting hand. 

" Why don't you cry ? " 

" Because I don't want to." 

" You do," said she. " You have been crying till you 
are half blind, and you are near crying again now." 

She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and 
locked the gate upon me. I went straight to Mr. Pum- 
blechook's, and was immensely relieved to find him not 
at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what 
day I was wanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off 
on the four-mile walk to our forge; pondering, as I went 
along, on all I had seen, and deeply revolving that I 
was a common labouring-boy ; that my hands were 
coarse; that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into 
a despicable habit of calling knaves Jacks; that I was 
much more ignorant than I had considered myself last 
night, and generally that I was in a low-lived bad way. 



CHAPTER IX. 



WHEN I reached home, my sister was very curious 
to know all about Miss Havisham's, and asked a 
number of questions. And I soon found myself getting 
heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and 
the small of the back, and having my face ignomin- 
iously shoved against the kitchen wall, because I did 
not answer those questions at sufficient length. 

If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the 
breasts of other young people to anything like the ex- 
tent to which it used to be hidden in mine — which I 
consider probable, as I have no particular reason to sus- 
pect myself of having been a monstrosity — it is the key 
to many reservations. I felt convinced that if I described 
Miss Havisham's as my eyes had seen it, I should not 
be understood. Not only that, but I felt convinced that 
Miss Havisham too would not be understood; and al- 
though she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I enter- 
tained an impression that there would be something 
coarse and treacherous in my dragging her as she really 
was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the contem- 
plation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 63 

could, and had my face shoved against the kitchen 
wall. 

The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumble- 
chook, preyed upon by a devouring curiosity to be in- 
formed of all I had seen and heard, came gaping over 
in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged 
to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his 
fishy eyes and mouth open, his sandy hair inquisitively 
on end, and his waistcoat heaving with windy arith- 
metic, made me vicious in my reticence. 

" Well, boy," Uncle Pumblechook began as soon as 
he was seated in the chair of honour by the fire. " How 
did you get on up town ? " 

I answered, "Pretty well, sir," and my sister shook 
her fist at me. 

" Pretty well?" Mr. Pumblechook repeated. "Pretty 
well is no answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty 
well, boy?" 

Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a 
state of obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash 
from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was ada- 
mantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered 
as if I had discovered a new idea, " I mean pretty 
well." 

My sister with an exclamation of impatience was 
going to fly at me — I had no shadow of defence, for Joe 
was busy in the forge — when Mr. Pumblechook inter- 
posed with "No! Don't lose your temper. Leave this 
lad to me, ma'am; leave this lad to me." Mr. Pumble- 
chook then turned me towards him, as if he were going 
to cut my hair, and said: 

"First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty -three 
pence?" 

I calculated the consequences of replying "Four 
Hundred Pound," and finding them against me, went 
as near the answer as I could — which was somewhere 
about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me 
through my pence-table from "twelve pence make one 
shilling," up to " forty pence make three and four- 
pence," and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had 
done for me, " Now ! How much is forty-three pence? " 
To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection, 
"I don't know." And I was so aggravated that I 
almost doubt if I did know, 



64 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to 
screw it out of me, and said, ''Is forty-three pence 
seven and sixpence three fardens, for instance?" 

"Yes!" said I. And although my sister instantly 
boxed my ears, it was highly gratifying to me to see 
that the answer spoilt his joke, and brought him to a 
dead stop. 

"Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?" Mr. Pumble- 
chook began again when he had recovered; folding his 
arms tight on his chest and applying the screw. 

" Very tall and dark," I told him. 

" Is she, uncle?" asked my sister. 

Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at 
once inferred that he had never seen Miss Havisham, 
for she was nothing of the kind. 

"Good!" said Mr. Pumblechook, conceitedly. ("This 
is the way to have him! We are beginning to hold our 
own, I think, Mum?") 

" I am sure, uncle," returned Mrs. Joe, " I wish you 
had him always: you know so well how to deal with 
him." 

"Now, boy! What was she a doing of, when you 
went in to-day?" asked Mr. Pumblechook. 

"She was sitting," I answered, "in a black velvet 
coach." 

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another 
— as they well might — and both repeated, "In a black 
velvet coach." 

"Yes," said I. "And Miss Estella — that's her niece, 
I think — handed her in cake and wine at the coach- 
window, on a gold plate. And we all had cake and 
wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to 
eat mine, because she told me too." 

" Was anybody else there? " asked Mr. Pumblechook. 

" Four dogs," said I 

" Large or small? " 

" Immense," said I. " And they fought for veal cut- 
lets out of a silver basket." 

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another 
again, in utter amazement. I was perfectly frantic — a 
reckless witness under the torture — and would have 
told them anything. 

"Where ivas this coach, in the name of gracious?" 
asked my sister, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 65 

"In Miss Havisham's room." They stared again. 
"But there weren't any horses to it." I added this 
saving clause, in the moment of rejecting four richly 
caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of 
harnessing. 

"Can this be possible, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe. 
"What can the boy mean?" 

"I'll tell you, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "My 
opinion is, it's a sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know — 
very flighty — quite flighty enough to pass her days in a 
sedan-chair." 

"Did you ever see her in it, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe. 

" How could I? " he returned, forced to the admission, 
" when I never see her in my life? Never clapped eyes 
upon her! " 

" Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to 
her?" 

" Why, don't you know," said Mr. Pumblechook, 
testily, " that when I have been there, I have been took 
up to the outside of her door, and the door has stood 
ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don't say you 
don't know that, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there 
to play. What did you play at, boy?" 

"We played with flags," I said. (I beg to observe 
that I think of myself with amazement, when I recal 
the lies I told on this occasion.) 

"Flags!" echoed my sister. 

"Yes," said I. "Estella waved a blue flag, and I 
waved a red one, and Miss Havisham waved one 
sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out at the coach- 
window. And then we all waved our swords and 
hurrahed." 

" Swords ! " repeated my sister. " Where did you get 
swords from ? " 

" Out of a cupboard," said I. " And I saw pistols in 
it — and jam — and pills. And there was no daylight in 
the room, but it was all lighted up with candles." 

" That's true, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook, with a 
grave nod. " That's the state of the case, for that much 
Fve seen myself.' And then they both stared at me, 
and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my 
countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg 
of my trousers with my right hand. 

If they had asked me any more questions I should 
VOL. i. 5 



66 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

undoubtedly have betrayed myself, for I was even then 
on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon in 
the yard, and should have hazarded the statement but 
for my invention being divided between that phenom- 
enon and a bear in the brewery. They were so much 
occupied, however, in discussing the marvels I had 
already presented for their consideration, that I escaped. 
The subject still held them when Joe came in from his 
work to have a cup of tea. To whom my sister, more 
for the relief of her own mind than for the gratification 
of his, related my pretended experiences. 

Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them 
all round the kitchen in helpless amazement, I was 
overtaken by penitence; but only as regarded him — not 
in the least as regarded the other two. Towards Joe, 
and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, 
while they sat debating what results would come to me 
from Miss Havisham's acquaintance and favour. They 
had no doubt that Miss Havisham would "do some- 
thing" for me; their doubts related to the form that 
something would take. My sister stood out for "prop- 
erty." Mr. Pumblechook was in favour of a handsome 
premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel 
trade — say, the corn and seed trade for instance. Joe 
fell into the deepest disgrace with both, for offering the 
bright suggestion that I might only be presented with 
one of the dogs who had fought for the veal-cutlets. 
"If a fool's head can't express better opinions than 
that," said my sister, "and you have got any work to 
do, you had better go and do it." So he went. 

After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my 
sister was washing up, I stole into the forge to Joe, and 
remained by him until he had done for the night. Then 
I said, "Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to 
tell you something." 

"Should you, Pip ?" said Joe, drawing his shoeing- 
stool near the forge. " Then tell us. What is it, Pip ? " 

"Joe," said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, 
and twisting it between my finger and thumb, "you 
remember all that about Miss Havisham's?" 

" Remember ?" said Joe. "I believe you! Won- 
derful!" 

" It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true." 

" What are you telling of, Pip ? " cried Joe, falling back 









GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 67 

in the greatest amazement. "You don't mean to 
say it's " 

"Yes, I do; it's lies, Joe." 

" But not all of it ? Why sure you don't mean to say, 

Pip, that there was no black welwet co ch ? " For, 

I stood shaking my head. "But at least there was 
dogs, Pip? Come, Pip," said Joe, persuasively, "if 
there warn't no weal-cutlets, at least there was dogs ? " 

"No, Joe." 

" A dog ?" said Joe. " A puppy ? Come ? ' 

"No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind." 

As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contem- 
plated me in dismay. " Pip, old chap ! This won't do, 
old fellow ! I say ! Where do you expect to go to ? " 

"It's terrible, Joe ; ain't it ?" 

"Terrible ?" cried Joe. "Awful ! What possessed 
you ? " 

"I don't know wiiat possessed me, Joe," I replied, 
letting his shirt sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes 
at his feet, hanging my head; "but I wish you hadn't 
taught me to call Knaves at cards, Jacks; and I wish 
my boots weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse." 

And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and 
that I hadn't been able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe 
and Pumblechook, who were so rude to me, and that 
there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havi- 
sham's who was dreadfully proud, and that she had said 
I was common, and that I knew I was common, and 
that I wished I was not common, and that the lies had 
come of it somehow, though I didn't know how. 

This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for 
Joe to deal with, as for me. But Joe took the case 
altogether out of the region of metaphysics, and by that 
means vanquished it. 

"There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip," said 
Joe, after some rumination, "namely, that lies is lies. 
Howsever they come, they didn't ought to come, and 
they come from the father of lies, and work round to 
the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That 
ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap. 
And as to being common, I don't make it out at all 
clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're 
oncommon small. Likewise you're a oncommon 
scholar." 



68 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe." 

"Why, see what a letter you wrote last night. 
Wrote in print even! Fve seen letters — Ah! and from 
gentlefolks! — that I'll swear weren't wrote in print," 
said Joe. 

" I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think 
much of me. It's only that." 

"Well, Pip," said Joe, "be it so or be it son't, you 
must be a common scholar afore you can be a oncom- 
mon one, I should hope! The king upon his throne, 
with his crown upon his ed, can't sit and write his acts 
of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he 
were an unpromoted Prince, with the alphabet — Ah!" 
added Joe, with a shake of the head that was full of 
meaning, "and begun at A too, and worked his way to 
Z. And I know what that is to do, though I can't say 
I've exactly done it." 

There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and 
it rather encouraged me. 

"Whether common ones as to callings and earnings," 
pursued Joe, reflectively, " mightn't be the better of 
continuing for to keep company with common ones, 
instead of going out to play with oncommon ones — which 
reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps?" 

"No, Joe." 

" (I'm sorry there weren't a flag, Pip.) Whether that 
might be or mightn't be, is a thing as can't be looked 
into now, without putting your sister on the Rampage; 
and that's a thing not to be thought of, as being done 
intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you 
by a true friend. Which this to you the true friend 
say. If you can't get to be oncommon through going 
straight, you'll never get to it through going crooked. 
So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die 
happy." 

"You are not angry with me Joe?" 

" No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were 
which I meantersay of a stunning and outdacious sort 
— alluding to them which bordered on weal-cutlets and 
dog-fighting — a sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip, 
their being dropped into your meditations, when you 
go up-stairs to bed. That's all, old chap, and don't 
never do it no more." 

When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 69 

I did not forget Joe's recommendation, and yet my 
young mind was in that disturbed and unthankful state, 
that I thought long after I had laid me down, how com- 
mon Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith: 
how thick his boots, and how coarse his hands. I 
thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting in a 
kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, 
and how Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a 
kitchen, but were far above the level of such common 
doings. I fell asleep, recalling what I " used to do " 
when I was at Miss Havisham's; as though I had been 
there weeks or months, instead of hours: and as though 
it were quite an old subject of remembrance, instead of 
one that had arisen only that day. 

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great 
changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. 
Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think 
how different its course would have been. Pause you 
who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain 
of iron or gold, of * thorns or flowers, that would never 
have bound you, but for the formation of the first link 
on one memorable day. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two 
later when I woke, that the best step I could take 
towards making myself uncommon was to get out of 
Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this 
luminous conception I mentioned to Biddy when I 
went to Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's at night, that I had 
a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and 
that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would 
impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the 
most obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and 
indeed began to carry out her promise within five 
minutes. 

The Educational Scheme or Course established by 
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt may be resolved into the fol- 
lowing synopsis. The pupils ate apples and put straws 
down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great- 
aunt collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate 



TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

totter at them with a birch-rod. After receiving the 
charge with every mark of derision, the pupils formed 
in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand 
to hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures 
and tables, and a little spelling — that is to say, that it 
had had once. As soon as this volume began to circulate, 
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of coma; arising 
either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils 
then entered among themselves upon a competitive ex- 
amination on the subject of Boots, with the view of as- 
certaining who could tread the hardest upon whose 
toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a 
rush at them and distributed three defaced Bibles 
(shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the 
chump- end of something), more illegibly printed at the 
best than any curiosities of literature I have since met 
with, speckled all over with ironmould, and having 
various specimens of the insect world smashed between 
their leaves. This part of the course was usually 
lightened by several single combats Between Biddy and 
refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy 
gave out the number of a page, and then we all read 
aloud what we could — or what we couldn't — in a fright- 
ful chorus: Biddy leading with a high, shrill, monoto- 
nous voice, and none of us having the least notion of, or 
reverence for, what we were reading about. When 
this horrible din had lasted a certain time, it mechanic- 
ally awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at 
a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was 
understood to terminate the Course for the evening, and 
we emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual 
victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibi- 
tion against any pupil's entertaining himself with a 
slate, or even with the ink (when there was any), but that 
it was not easy to pursue that branch of study in the 
winter season, on account of the little general shop in 
which the classes were holden — and which was also 
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's sitting-room and bed-cham- 
ber — being but faintly illuminated through the agency 
of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers. 

It appeared to me that it would take time to become 
uncommon under these circumstances: nevertheless, I 
resolved to try it, and that very evening Biddy entered 
on our special agreement, by imparting some informa- 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 71 

tion from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head 
of moist sugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a 
large old English D, which she had imitated from the 
heading of some newspaper, and which I supposed, 
until she told me what it was, to be a design for a 
buckle. 

Of course there was a public-house in the village, and 
of course Joe liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. 
I had received strict orders from my sister to call for 
him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that evening, on my 
way from school, and bring him home at my peril. To 
the Three Jolly Bargemen, therefore, I directed my 
steps. 

There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some 
alarmingly long chalk scores in it on the wall at the 
side of the door, which seemed to me to be never paid 
off. They had been there ever since I could remember, 
and had grown more than I had. But there was a 
quantity of chalk about our country, and perhaps the 
people neglected no opportunity of turning it to account. 

It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking 
rather grimly at these records, but as my business was 
with Joe and not with him, I merely wished him good 
evening, and passed into the common room at the end 
of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen 
fire, and where Joe was smoking his pipe in company 
with Mr. Wopsle and a stranger. Joe greeted me as 
usual with " Halloa, Pip, old chap! " and the moment he 
said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at 
me. 

He was a secret-looking man, whom I had never seen 
before. His head was all on one side, and one of his 
eyes was half shut up, as if he were taking aim at 
something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his 
mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all 
his smoke away and looking hard at me all the time, 
nodded. So I nodded, and then he nodded again, and 
made room on the settle beside him that I might sit 
down there. 

But, as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I en- 
tered that place of resort, I said, " No, thank you, sir," 
and fell into the space Joe made for me on the opposite 
settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe, and 
seeing that his attention was otherwise engaged, nod- 



72 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

ded to me again when I had taken my seat, and then 
rubbed his leg — in a very odd way, as it struck me. 

"You was saying/' said the strange man, turning to 
Joe, " that you was a blacksmith." 

"Yes. I said it, you know/' said Joe. 

" What'll you drink Mr. ? You didn't mention 

your name, by-the-by." 

Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him 
by it. 

" What'll you drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? 
To top up with?" 

" Well," said Joe, " to tell you the truth, I ain't much 
in the habit of drinking at anybody's expense but my 



own." 



"Habit? No," returned the stranger "but once and 
away, and on a Saturday night too. Come! Put a name 
to it, Mr. Gargery." 

"I wouldn't wish to be stiff company," said Joe. 
"Rum." 

"Rum," repeated the stranger. "And will the other 
gentleman originate a sentiment?" 

" Rum" said Mr. Wopsle. 

"Three Rums!" cried the stranger, calling to the 
landlord. " Glasses round !" 

" This other gentleman," observed Joe, by way of in- 
troducing Mr. Wopsle, " is a gentleman that you would 
like to hear give it out. Our clerk at church." 

"Aha!" said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his 
eye at me. "The lonely church, right out on the 
marshes, with the graves round it!" 

" That's it " said Joe. 

The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over 
his pipe, put his legs up on the settle that he had to 
himself. He wore a flapping broad-brimmed traveller's 
hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his head in 
the manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he 
looked at the fire, I thought I saw a cunning expression, 
followed by a half -laugh, come into his face. 

" I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, 
but it seems a solitary country towards the river." 

"Most marshes is solitary," said Joe. 

"No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gipsies, now, 
or tramps, or vagrants of any sort, out there?" 

No/' said Joe; "none but a runaway convict now 



a 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 73 

and then. And we don't find them, easy. Eh, Mr. 
Wopsle?" 

Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old dis- 
comfiture, assented; but not warmly. 

"Seems you have been out after such?" asked the 
stranger. 

" Once," returned Joe. " Not that we wanted to take 
them, you understand; we went out as lookers on; me, 
and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn't us, Pip?" 

"Yes, Joe." . 

The stranger looked at me again — still cocking his eye, 
as if he were expressly taking aim at me with his invis- 
ible gun — and said, "He's a likely young parcel of 
bones that. What is it you call him ? " 

"Pip," said Joe. 

"Christened Pip?" 

" No, not christened Pip." 

"Surname Pip ?" 

"No," said Joe; " it's a kind of a family name what 
he gave himself when a infant, and is called by." 

" Son of yours ?" 

"Well," said Joe, meditatively — not, of course, that 
it could be in anywise necessary to consider about it, but 
because it was the way at the Jolly Bargemen to seem 
to consider deeply about everything that was discussed 
over pipes; " well — no. No, he ain't." 

"Nevvy ?" said the strange man. 

"Well," said Joe, with the same appearance of pro- 
found cogitation, "he is not — no, not to deceive you, he 
is not — my nevvy." 

"What the Blue Blazes is he ?" asked the stranger. 
Which appeared to me to be an inquiry of unnecessary 
strength. 

Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all 
about relationships, having professional occasion to bear 
in mind what female relations a man might not marry; 
and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having 
his hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most ter- 
rifically snarling passage from Richard the Third, and 
seemed to think he had done quite enough to account 
for it when he added, " — as the poet says." 

And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle refer- 
red to me, he considered it a necessary part of such 
reference to rumple my hair and poke it into my eyes. 



74 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I cannot conceive why everybody of his standing who 
visited at our house should always have put me through 
the same inflammatory process under similar circum- 
stances. Yet I do not call to mind that I was ever in 
my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social 
family circle, but some large-handed person took some 
such ophthalmic steps to patronize me. 

All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but 
me, and looked at me as if he were determined to have 
a shot at me at last, and bring me down. But he said 
nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation, until 
the glasses of rum-and-water were brought; and then he 
made his shot, and a most extraordinary shot it was. 

It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb- 
show, and was pointedly addressed to me. He stirred 
his rum-and-water pointedly at me, and he tasted his 
rum-and- water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and 
he tasted it: not with a spoon that was brought to him, 
but with a file. 

He did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and 
when he had done it he wiped the file and put it in a 
breast-pocket. I knew it to be Joe's file, and I knew 
that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the instru- 
ment. I sat gazing at him, spell-bound. But he now 
reclined on his settle, taking very little notice of me, 
and talking principally about turnips. 

There was a delicious sense of cleaning up and making 
a quiet pause before going on in life afresh, in our vil- 
lage on Saturday nights, which stimulated Joe to dare 
to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays than at 
other times. The half-hour and the rum-and-water 
running out together, Joe got up to go, and took me by 
the hand. 

" Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery," said the strange 
man. "I think I've got a bright new shilling some- 
where in my pocket, and if I have, the boy shall 
have it." 

He looked it out from a handful of small change, 
folded it in some crumpled paper, and gave it to me. 
" Yours! " said he. " Mind! Your own." 

I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds 
of good manners, and holding tight to Joe. He gave 
Joe good-night, and he gave Mr. Wopsle good-night 
(who went out with us), and he gave me only, a look 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 75 

with his aiming eye — no, not a look, for he shut it up, 
but wonders may be done with an eye by hiding it. 

On the way home, if I had been in the humour for 
talking, the talk must have been all on my side, for Mr. 
Wopsle parted from us at the door of the Jolly Barge- 
men, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth 
wide open, to rinse the rum out with as much air as pos- 
sible. But I was in a manner stupified by this turning 
up of my old misdeed and old acquaintance, and could 
think of nothing else. 

My sister was not in a very bad temper when we pre- 
sented ourselves in the kitchen, and Joe was encouraged 
by that unusual circumstance to tell her about the 
bright shilling. "A bad un, I'll be bound," said Mrs. 
Joe, triumphantly, " or he wouldn't have given it to the 
boy! Let's look at it." 

I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good 
one. " But what's this? " said Mrs. Joe, throwing down 
the shilling and catching up the paper. " Two One- 
Pound notes?" 

Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes 
that seemed to have been on terms of the warmest inti- 
macy with all the cattle markets in the county. Joe 
caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the Jolly 
Bargemen to restore them to their owner. While he 
was gone, I sat down on my usual stool and looked 
vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty sure that the man 
would not be there. 51 

Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was 
gone, but that he, Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly 
Bargemen concerning the notes. Then my sister sealed 
them up in a piece of paper, and put them under some 
dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of 
a press in the state parlour. There they remained, a 
nightmare to me, many and many a night and 
day. 

I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through 
thinking of the strange man taking aim at me with his 
invisible gun, and of the guiltily coarse and common 
thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with 
convicts — a feature in my low career that I had previ- 
ously forgotten. I was haunted by the file too. A 
dread possessed me that when I least expected it, the 
file would reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by think- 



76 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

ing of Miss Havisham's next Wednesday; and in my 
sleep I saw the file coming at me out of a door, without 
seeing who held it, and I screamed myself awake. 



CHAPTER XL 



AT the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's, 
and my hesitating ring at the gate brought out 
Estella. She locked it after admitting me, as she had 
done before, and again preceded me into the dark pas- 
sage where her candle stood. She took no notice of me 
until she had the candle in her hand, when she looked 
over her shoulder, superciliously saying, "You are to 
come this way to-day," and took me to quite another 
part of the house. 

The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade 
the whole square basement of the Manor House. We 
traversed but one side of the square, however, and at 
the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and 
opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I 
found myself in a small paved courtyard, the opposite 
side of which w^as formed by a detached dwelling-house, 
that looked as if it had once belonged to the manager 
or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a 
clock in the outer wall of this house. Like the clock in 
Miss Llavisham's room, and like Miss Havisham's watch, 
it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. 

We went in at the door, which stood open, and into a 
gloomy room with a low ceiling, on the ground floor at 
the back. There was some company in the room, and 
Estella said to me as she joined it, " You are to go and 
stand there, boy, till you are wanted." " There," being 
the window, I crossed to it, and stood "there," in a 
very uncomfortable state of mind, looking out. 

It opened to the ground, and looked into a most 
miserable corner of the neglected garden, upon a rank 
ruin of cabbage-stalks, and one box-tree that had been 
clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new 
growth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different 
colour, as if that part of the pudding had stuck to the 
saucepan and got burnt. This was my homely thought, 
as I contemplated the box-tree. There had been some 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 77 

light snow overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my 
knowledge ; but, it had not quite melted from the cold 
shadow of this bit of garden, and the wind caught it 
up in little eddies and threw it at the window, as if it 
pelted me for coming there. 

I divined that my coming had stopped conversation 
in the room, and that its other occupants were looking 
at me. I could see nothing of the room except the 
shining of the fire in the window-glass, but I stiffened 
in all my joints with the consciousness that I was 
under close inspection. 

There were three ladies in the room and one gentle- 
man. Before I had been standing at the window five 
minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were 
all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pre- 
tended not to know that the others were toadies and 
humbugs : because the admission that he or she did 
know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady 
and humbug. 

They had all a listless and dreary air of waiting some- 
body's pleasure, and the most talkative of the ladies 
had to speak quite rigidly to repress a yawn. This 
lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded 
me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, 
and (as I found when I caught sight of her) of a blunter 
cast of features. Indeed, when I knew her better I be- 
gan to think it was a Mercy she had any features at all, 
so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face. 

" Poor dear soul!" said this lady, with an abruptness 
of manner quite my sister's. " Nobody's enemy but his 
own ! " 

" It would be much more commendable to be some- 
body else's enemy," said the gentleman; " far more 
natural." 

" Cousin Raymond," observed another lady, "we are 
to love our neighbour." 

"Sarah Pocket," returned Cousin Raymond, "If a 
man is not his own neighbour, who is?" 

Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said 
(checking a yawn), "The idea!" But I thought they 
seemed to think it rather a good idea too. The other 
lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and em- 
phatically, " Very true!" 

" Poor soul!" Camilla presently went on (I knew they 



78 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

had all been looking at me in the meantime) , " he is 
so very strange! Would any one believe that when 
Tom's wife died, he actually could not be induced to 
see the importance of the children's having the deepest 
of trimmings to their mourning? ' Good Lord!' says 
he, ' Camilla, what can it signify so long as the poor 
bereaved little things are in black?' So like Matthew! 
The idea!" 

" Good points in him, good points in him," said Cousin 
Raymond; " Heaven forbid I should deny good points 
in him; but he never had, and he never will have, any 
sense of the proprieties." 

"You know I was obliged," said Camilla, "I was 
obliged to be firm. I said, 'It will not do, for the 
credit of the family. I told him, that, without deep 
trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it 
from breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion, 
And at last he flung out in his violent way, and said, 
with a D, 'Then do as you like.' Thank Goodness it 
will always be a consolation to me to know that I in- 
stantly went out in a pouring rain and bought the 
things." 

" He paid for them, did he not? " asked Estella. 

" It's not the question, my dear child, who paid for 
them," returned Camilla, " /bought them. And I shall 
often think of that with peace, when I wake up in the 
night." 

The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the 
echoing of some cry or call along the passage by which 
I had come, interrupted the conversation and caused 
Estella to say to me, "Now boy!" On my turning 
round, they all looked at me with the utmost contempt, 
and, as I went out, I heard Sarah Pocket say, "Well I 
am sure! What next!" and Camilla add, with indigna- 
tion, " Was there ever such a fancy! The i-de-a! " 

As we were going with our candle along tha dark pas- 
sage, Estella stopped all of a sudden, and, facing round, 
said in her taunting manner, with her face quite close 
to mine : 

"Well?" 

"Well, miss ?" I answered, almost falling over her 
and checking myself. 

She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood look- 
ing at her. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 79 



"Am I pretty ?" 
m "Yes ; I think you are very pretty." 

"Am I insulting ?" 

" Not so much so as you were last time/' said I. 

" Not so much so ? " 

"No." 

She fired when she asked the last question and she 
slapped my face with such force as she had, when I 
answered it. 

" Now?" said she. "You little coarse monster, what 
do you think of me now ? " 

" I shall not tell you." 

" Because you are going to tell, up-stairs. Is that it?" 

" No," said I, "that's not it." ' 

" Why don't you cry again," you little wretch ?" 

" Because I'll never cry for you again," said I. Which 
was, I suppose, as false a declaration as ever was made; 
for I was inwardly crying for her then, and I know 
what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards. 

We went on our way up-stairs after this episode; and, 
as we were going up, we met a gentleman groping his 
way down. 

" Whom have we here ? * asked the gentleman, stop- 
ping and looking at me. 

"A boy," saidEstella. 

He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark com- 
plexion, with an exceedingly large head and a corre- 
sponding large hand. He took my chin in his large 
hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by 
the light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on 
the top of his head, an^ had bushy black eyebrows that 
wouldn't lie down but stood up bristling. His eyes were 
set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp 
and suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong 
black dots where his beard and whiskers would have 
been if he had let them. He was nothing to me, and I 
could have had no foresight then, that he ever would 
be anything to me, but it happened that I had this op- 
portunity of observing him well. 

" Boy of the neighbourhood ? Hey ?" said he. 

"Yes, sir," said I. 

" How do you come here ?" 

" Miss Havisham sent for me, sir," I explained. 
Well ! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large 



a 



80 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

experience of boys, and you're a bad set of fellows. 
Now mind ! " said he, biting the side of his great f ore>, 
finger as he frowned at me, "you behave yourself! " 

With those words he released me — which I was glad 
of, for his hand smelt of scented soap — and went his 
way down stairs. I wondered whether he could be a 
doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn't be a doctor, or he 
would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. 
There was not much time to consider the subject, for 
we were soon in Miss Havisham' s room, where she and 
everything else were just as I had left them. Estella 
left me standing near the door, and I stood there until 
Miss Havisham cast her eyes upon me from the dress- 
ing-table. 

"So !" she said, without being startled or surprised ; 
" the days have worn away, have they ?" 

"Yes, ma'am. To-day is " 

"There, there, there! " with the impatient movement 
of her fingers. " I don't want to know. Are you ready 
to play?" 

I was obliged to answer in some confusion, "I don't 
think I am, ma'am." 

" Not at cards again ?" she demanded with a search- 
ing look. 

" Yes, ma 9 am; I could do that, if I was wanted." 

"Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy," 
said Miss Havisham, impatiently, "and you are un- 
willing to play, are you willing to work ? " 

I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than 
I had been able to find for the other question, and I said 
I was quite willing. 

"Then go into that opposite room," said she, pointing 
at the door behind me with her withered hand, " and 
wait there till I come." 

I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room 
she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was 
completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that 
was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the 
damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to 
go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which 
hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air — 
like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of 
candles on the high chimneypiece faintly lighted the 
chamber : or, it would be more expressive to say, faintly 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 81 

troubled its darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say 
had once been handsome, but every discernible thing in 
it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to 
pieces. The most prominent object was a long table 
with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in 
preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped 
together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was 
in the middle of this cloth ; it was so heavily overhung 
with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; 
and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which 
I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I 
saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running 
home to it, and running out from it, as if some circum- 
stance of the greatest public importance had just trans- 
pired in the spider community. 

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if 
the same occurrence were important to their interests. 
But, the blackbeetles took no notice of the agitation, 
and groped about the hearth in a ponderously elderly 
way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, 
and not on terms with one another. 

These crawling things had fascinated my attention 
and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss 
Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other 
hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she 
leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place. 

" This," said she, pointing to the long table with her 
stick, " is where I will be laid when I am dead. They 
shall come and look at me here." 

With some vague misgiving that she might get upon 
the table then and there and die at once, the complete 
realisation of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I 
shrank under her touch. 

"What do you think that is?" she asked me, again 
pointing with her stick; "that, where those cobwebs 
are?" 

" I can't guess what it is, ma'am." 

" It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine ! " 

She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, 
and then said, leaning on me while her hand twitched 
my shoulder, " Come, come, come ! Walk me, walk me!" 

I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was 
to walk Miss Havisham round and round the room. 
Accordingly, I started at once, and she leaned upon my 
vol. i. (L 



82 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have 
been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under 
that roof) of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. 

She was not physically strong, and after a little time 
said, " Slower!" Still, we went at an impatient fitful 
speed, and as we went, she twitched the hand upon my 
shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to believe 
that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. 
After a while she said, "Call Estella!" so I went out 
on the landing and roared that name as I had done on 
the previous occasion. When her light appeared, I re- 
turned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again 
round and round the room. 

If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our pro- 
ceedings, I should have felt sufficiently discontented ; 
but, as she brought with her the three ladies and the 
gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn't know what 
to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped ; but, 
Miss Havisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted 
on — with a shame-faced consciousness on my part that 
they would think it was all my doing. 

Dear Miss Havisham," said Miss Sarah Pocket. 

How well you look! " 
I do not," returned Miss Havisham. " I am yellow 
skin and bone." 

Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this 
rebuff ; and she murmured, as she plaintively contem- 
plated Miss Havisham, "Poor dear soul! Certainly 
not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The 
idea!" 

" And how are you ? " said Miss Havisham to Camilla. 
As we were close to Camilla then, I would have stopped 
as a matter of course, only Miss Havisham wouldn't 
stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly ob- 
noxious to Camilla. 

"Thank you, Miss Havisham," she returned, "I am 
as well as can be expected." 

"Why, what's the matter with you?" asked Miss 
Havisham, with exceeding sharpness. 

"Nothing worth mentioning," replied Camilla. "I 
don't wish to make a display of my feelings, but I have 
habitually thought of you more in the night than I am 
quite equal to." 

" Then don't think of me," retorted Miss Havisham. 



a. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 83 

" Very easily said!" remarked Camilla, amicably re- 
pressing a sob, while a hitch came into her upper lip, 
and her tears overflowed. " Raymond is a witness what 
ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night. 
Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have in 
my legs. Chokings and nervous jerkings, however, 
are nothing new to me when I think with anxiety of 
those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensi- 
tive, I should have a better digestion and an iron set of 
nerves. I am sure I wish it could be so. But as to not 
thinking of you in the night — The idea!" Here, a burst 
of tears. 

The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentle- 
man present, and him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. 
He came to the rescue at this point, and said in a con- 
solatory and complimentary voice, "Camilla, my dear, 
it is well known that your family feelings are gradually 
undermining you to the extent of making one of your 
legs shorter than the other." 

"I am not aware," observed the grave lady whose 
voice I had heard but once, "that to think of any per- 
son is to make a great claim upon that person, my dear." 

Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry 
brown corrugated old woman, with a small face that 
might have been made of walnut shells, and a large 
mouth like a cat's without the whiskers, supported this 
position by saying, "No, indeed, my dear. Hem!" 

"Thinking is easy enough," said the grave lady. 

"What is easier, you know?" assented Miss Sarah 
Pocket. 

"Oh yes, yes!" cried Camilla, whose fermenting feel- 
ings appeared to rise from her legs to her bosom. " It's 
all very true! It's a weakness to be so affectionate, but 
I can't help it. No doubt my health would be much 
better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn't change my 
disposition if I could. It's the cause of much suffering, 
but it's a consolation to know I possess it, when I wake 
up in the night." Here another burst of feeling. 

Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, 
but kept going round and round the room: now, brush- 
ing against the skirts of the visitors: now, giving them 
the whole length of the dismal chamber. 

"There's Matthew!" said Camilla. "Never mixing 
with any natural ties, never coming here to see how 



84 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Miss Havisham is! I have taken to the sofa with my 
staylace cut, and have lain there hours, insensible, with 
my head over the side, and my hair all down, and my 
feet I don't know where " 

("Much higher than your head, my love," said Mr. 
Camilla.) 

" I have gone off into that state, hours and hours, on 
account of Matthew's strange and inexplicable conduct, 
and nobody has thanked me." 

"Really I must say I should think not!" interposed 
the grave lady. 

"You see, my dear," added Miss Sarah Pocket (a 
blandly vicious personage), ' i the question to put to your- 
self is, who did you expect to thank you, my love ? " 

"Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the 
sort," resumed Camilla, " I have remained in that state, 
hours and hours, and Raymond is a witness of the ex- 
tent to which I have choked, and what the total ineffi- 
cacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the 
pianoforte-tuner's across the street, where the poor mis- 
taken children have even supposed it to be pigeons coo- 
ing at a distance — and now to be told " Here Camilla 

put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemi- 
cal as to the formation of new combinations there. 

When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havi- 
sham stopped me and herself, and stood looking at the 
speaker. This change had a great influence in bringing 
Camilla's chemistry to a sudden end. 

"Matthew will come and see me at last," said Miss 
Havisham, sternly, " when I am laid on that table. That 
will be his place — there," striking the table with her 
stick, " at my head ! And yours will be there ! And your 
husband's there! And Sarah Pocket's there! And Geor- 
giana's there! Now you all know where to take your 
stations when you come to feast upon me. And now 
go!" 

At the mention of each name, she had struck the table 
with her stick in a new place. She now said, "Walk 
me, walk me ! " and we went on again. 

"I suppose there's nothing to be done," exclaimed Ca- 
milla, " but comply and depart. It's something to have 
seen the object of one's love and duty, even for so short 
a time. I shall think of it with a melancholy satisfac- 
tion when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 85 

could have that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am 
determined not to make a display of my feelings, but 
it's very hard to be told one wants to feast on one's re- 
lations — as if one was a Giant — and to be told to go. 
The bare idea ! " 

Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her 
hand upon her heaving bosom, that lady assumed an 
unnatural fortitude of manner which I supposed to be 
expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out 
of view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham, was 
escorted forth. Sarah Pocket and Georgiana contended 
who should remain last; but Sarah was too knowing to 
be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that art- 
ful slipperiness, that the latter was obliged to take pre- 
cedence. Sarah Pocket then made her separate effect 
of departing with " Bless you, Miss Havisham dear !" 
and with a smile of forgiving pity on her walnut-shell 
countenance for the weaknesses of the rest. 

While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss 
Havisham still walked with her hand on my shoulder, 
but more and more slowly. At last she stopped before 
the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it 
some seconds: 

" This is my birthday, Pip." 

I was going to wish her many happy returns, when 
she lifted her stick. 

" I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer 
those who were here just now, or any one to speak 
of it. They come here on the day, but they dare not 
refer to it." 

Of course I made no further effort to refer to it. 

" On this day of the year, long before you were born, 
this heap of decay," stabbing with her crutched stick at 
the pile of cobwebs on the table but not touching it, 
was brought here. It and I have worn away together. 
The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than 
teeth of mice have gnawed at me." 

She held the head of her stick against her heart as 
she stood looking at the table: she in her once white 
dress, all yellow and withered; the once white cloth 
all yellow and withered : everything around, in a state 
to crumble under a touch. 

"When the ruin is complete," said she with a ghastly 
look, " and when they lay me dead, in my bride's dress 



86 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

on the bride's table — which shall be done, and which 
will be the finished curse upon him — so much the better 
if it is done on this day ! " 

She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking 
at her own figure lying there. I remained quiet. 
Estella returned, and she too remained quiet. It seem- 
ed to me that we continued thus a long time. In the 
heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that 
brooded in its remoter corners, I even had an 
alarming fancy that Estella and I might presently 
begin to decay. 

At length not coming out of her distraught state by 
degrees, but in an instant, Miss Havisham said, "Let 
me see you two play cards; why have you not begun?" 
With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as 
before; Miss Havisham watched us all the time, directed 
my attention to Estella's beauty, and made me notice it 
the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and 
hair. 

Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before; 
except that she did not condescend to speak. When we 
had played some half-dozen games, a day was appointed 
for my return, and I was taken down into the yard to be 
fed in the former dog-like manner. There, too, I was 
again left to wander about as I liked. 

It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that 
garden wall which I had scrambled up to peep over on 
the last occasion was, on that last occasion open or 
shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I saw 
one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella 
had let the visitors out — for, she had returned with 
the keys in her hand — I strolled into the garden, and 
strolled all over it. It was quite a wilderness, and 
there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in 
it, which seemed in their decline to have produced a 
spontaneous growth of weak atteir T)ts at pieces of old 
hats and boots, with now and then a weedy offshoot 
into the likeness of a battered saucepan. 

When I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse 
with nothing in it but a fallen-down grape-vine and 
some bottles, I found myself in the dismal corner upon 
which I had looked out of window. Never questioning 
for a moment that the house was now empty, I looked 
in at another window, and found myself, to rny great 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 8? 

surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a pale young 
gentleman with red eyelids and light hair. 

This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, 
and reappeared beside me. He had been at his books 
when I had found myself staring at him, and I now 
saw that he was inky. 

"Halloa!" said he, "young fellow!" 

Halloa being a general observation which I had 
usually observed to be best answered by itself , I said, 
' ■ Halloa ! " politely omitting young fellow. 

"Who let you in?" said he. 

" Miss Estella." 

"Who gave you leave to prowl about?" 

"Miss Estella." 

"Come and fight," said the pale young gentleman. 

What could I do but follow him? I have often asked 
myself the question since; but, what could I do ? His 
manner was so final and I was so astonished, that I 
followed where he led, as if I had been under a spell. 

" Stop a minute, though," he said, wheeling round be- 
fore we had gone many paces. " I ought to give you a 
reason for fighting, too. There it is!" In a most irrita- 
ting manner he instantly slapped his hands against one 
another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, 
pulled my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his 
head, and butted it into my stomach. 

The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that 
it was unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a 
liberty, was particularly disagreeable just after bread 
and meat. I therefore hit out at him and was going to 
hit out again, when he said, "Aha! Would you?" and 
began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner 
quite unparalleled within my limited experience. 

"Laws of the game!" said he. Here, he skipped 
from his left leg on to his right. "Regular rules! ?> 
Here, he skipped from his right leg on to his left. 
"Come to the ground, and go through the prelimin- 
aries!" Here, he dodged backwards and forwards, and 
did all sorts of things while I looked helplessly at him. 

I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dex- 
terous; but, I felt morally and physically convinced 
that his light head of hair could have had no business in 
the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to consider 
it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. There- 



88 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

fore, I followed him without a word, to a retired nook 
of the garden formed by the junction of two walls and 
screened by some rubbish. On his asking me if I was 
satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he 
begged my leave to absent himself for a moment, 
and quickly returned with a bottle of water, and a 
sponge dipped in vinegar. " Available for both/' he 
said, placing these against the wall. And then fell to 
pulling off, not only his jacket and waistcoat, but his 
shirt too, in a manner at once light-hearted, business- 
like and bloodthirsty. 

Although he did not look very healthy — having pim- 
ples on his face and a breaking out at his mouth — these 
dreadful preparations quite appalled me. I judged him 
to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and 
he had a way of spinning himself about that was full 
of appearance. For the rest, he was a young gentleman 
in a grey suit (when not denuded for battle), with his 
elbows, knees, wrists, and heels, considerably in ad- 
vance of the rest of him as to development. 

My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me 
with every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and 
eyeing my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing 
his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life, as 
I was when I let out the first blow and saw him lying 
on his back, looking up at me with a bloody nose and 
his face exceedingly fore-shortened. 

But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging 
himself with a great show of dexterity begadn squaring 
again. The second greatest surprise I have ever had 
in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking 
up at me out of a black eye. 

His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed 
to have no strength, and he never once hit me hard, and 
he was always knocked down; but, he would be up 
again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out 
of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in sec- 
onding himself according to form, and then came at me 
with an air and a show that made me believe he really 
was going to do for me at last. He got heavily bruised, for 
I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder 
I hit him; but he came up again and again and again, 
until he got a bad fall with the back of his head against 
the wall. Ev on after that crisis in our affairs, he got up 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 89 

and turned round and round confusedly a few times, 
not knowing where I was; but finally went on his knees 
to his sponge and threw it up: at the same time panting 
out, " That means you have won." 

He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I 
had not proposed the contest I felt but a gloomy satis- 
faction in my victory. Indeed, I go so far as to hope 
that I regarded myself while dressing, as a species of 
savage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I 
got dressed, darkly wiping my sanguinary face at in- 
tervals, and I said, "Can I help you?" and he said, 
"No thankee," and I said "Good afternoon," and he 
said " Same to you." 

When I got into the court-yard, I found Estella wait- 
ing with the keys. But, she neither asked me where I 
had been, nor why I had kept her waiting; and there 
was a bright flush upon her face, as though something 
had happened to delight her. Instead of going straight 
to the gate, too, she stepped back into the passage, and 
beckoned me. 

" Come here ! You may kiss me, if you like." 

I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I 
would have gone through a great deal to kiss her cheek. 
But, I felt that the kiss was given to the coarse common 
boy as a piece of money might have been, and that it 
was worth nothing. 

What with the birthday visitors, and what with the 
cards, and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so 
long, that when I neared home the light on the spit of 
sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against 
a black night-sky, and Joe's furnace was flinging a 
path of fire across the road. 



CHAPTER XII. 



MY mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the 
pale young gentleman. The more I thought of 
the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on his 
back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned coun- 
tenance, the more certain it appeared that something 
would be done to me. I felt that the pale young gen- 



90 GKEAT EXPECTATIONS. 

tleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law 
would avenge it. Without having any definite idea of 
the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me that 
village boys could not go stalking about the country, 
ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into 
the studious youth of England without laying them- 
selves open to severe punishment. For some days, I 
even kept close at home, and looked out of the kitchen 
door with the greatest caution and trepidation before 
going on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail 
should pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman's 
nose had stained my trousers, and I tried to wash out 
that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had 
cut my knuckles against the pale young gentleman's 
teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand 
tangles as I devised incredible ways of accounting for 
that damnatory circumstance when I should be haled 
before the Judges. 

When the day came round for my return to the scene 
of the deed of violence, my terrors reached their height. 
Whether myrmidons of Justice, specially sent down 
from London, would be lying in ambush behind the 
gate? Whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take per- 
sonal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, 
might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, 
and shoot me dead? Whether suborned boys — a numer- 
ous band of mercenaries — might be engaged to fall 
upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until I was no 
more? It was high testimony to my confidence in the 
spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never im- 
agined him accessary to these retaliations; they always 
came into my mind as the acts of injudicious relatives 
of his, goaded on by the state of his visage and an indig- 
nant sympathy with the family features. 

However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. 
And behold! nothing came of the late struggle. It was 
not alluded to in any way, and no pale gentleman was 
to be discovered on the premises. I found the same 
gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked 
in at the windows of the detached house; but, my view 
was suddenly stopped by the closed shutters within, and 
all was lifeless. Only in the corner where the combat 
had taken place, could I detect any evidence of the 
young gentleman's existence. There were traces of his 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 91 

gore in that spot, and I covered them with garden-mould 
from the eye of man. 

On the broad landing between Miss Havisham' s own 
room and that other room in which the long table was 
laid out, I saw a garden-chair — a light chair on wheels, 
that you pushed from behind. It had been placed there 
since my last visit, and I entered, that same day, on a 
regular occupation of pushing Miss Havisham in this 
chair (when she was tired of walking with her hand 
upon my shoulder) round her own room, and across the 
landing, and round the other room. Over and over and 
over again, we would make these journeys, and some- 
times they would last as long as three hours at a stretch. 
I insensibly fall into a general mention of these jour- 
neys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I 
should return at every alternate day at noon for these 
purposes, and because I am now going to sum up a 
period of at least eight or ten months. 

As we began to be more used to one another, Miss 
Havisham talked more to me, and asked me such ques- 
tions as what had I learned and what was I going to be? 
I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I be- 
lieved; and enlarged upon my knowing nothing and 
wanting to know everything, in the hope that she 
might offer some help towards that desirable end. But, 
she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my 
being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any 
money— or anything but my daily dinner — nor even 
stipulate that I should be paid for my services. 

Estella was always about, and always let me in and 
out, but never told me I might kiss her again. Some- 
times, she would coldly tolerate me; sometimes, she 
would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite 
familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me ener- 
getically that she hated me. Miss Havisham would 
often ask me in a whisper, or when we were alone, 
" Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip?" And when 
I said Yes (for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it 
greedily. Also, when we played at cards Miss Havisham 
would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella' s moods, 
whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods 
were so many and so contradictory of one another that 
I was puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would 
embrace her with lavish fondness, murmuring some- 



92 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

thing in her ear that sounded like " Break their hearts, 
my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no 
mercy!" 

There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at 
the forge, of which the burden was Old Clem. This 
was not a very ceremonious way of rendering homage 
to a patron saint; but I believe Old Clem stood in that 
relation towards smiths. It was a song thaj; imitated 
the measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere 
lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's re- 
spected name. Thus, you were to hammer boys round 
— Old Clem! With a thump and a sound — Old Clem! 
Beat it out, beat it out — Old Clem! With a clink for the 
stout — Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire — Old 
Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher — Old Clem! One 
day soon after the appearance of the chair, Miss Hav- 
isham suddenly saying to me, with the impatient move- 
ment of the fingers, " There, there, there ! Sing!" I 
was surprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed her 
over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy that, 
she took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were 
singing in her sleep. After that, it became customary 
with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would 
often join in; though the whole strain was so subdued, 
even when there were three of us, that it made less 
noise in the grim old house than the lightest breath of 
wind. 

What could I become with these surroundings? How 
could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it 
to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my 
eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from 
the misty yellow rooms? 

Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gen- 
tleman, if I had not previously been betrayed into those 
enormous inventions to which I had confessed. Under 
the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly fail to dis- 
cern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate pas- 
senger to be put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I 
said nothing of him. Besides: that shrinking from, 
having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which 
had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more 
potent as time went on. I reposed complete confidence 
in no one but Biddy; but, I told poor Biddy everything. 
Why it came natural for me to do so, and why Biddy 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 93 

had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not 
know then, though I think I know now. 

Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, 
fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my 
exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used often 
to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing 
my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to 
this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that 
if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his 
chaise-cart, they would have done it. The miserable 
man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind, that 
he could not discuss my prospects without having me 
before him — as it were, to operate upon — and he would 
drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where 
I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the fire 
as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, 
"Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which 
you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and 
be for ever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, 
Mum, with respections to this boy!" And then he 
would rumple my hair the wrong way — which from my 
earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my 
soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do — and 
would hold me before him by the sleeve : a spectacle of 
imbecility only to be equalled by himself. 

Then, he and my sister would pair off in such non- 
sensical speculations about Miss Havisham, and about 
what she would do with me and for me, that I used to 
want — quite painfully — to burst into spiteful tears, fly 
at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these 
dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were morally 
wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while 
Pumblechook himself, self -constituted my patron, would 
sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the 
architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged 
in a very unremunerative job. 

In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was 
often talked at, while they were in progress, by reason 
of Mrs. Joe's seeing that he was not favourable to my 
being taken away from the forge. I was fully old 
enough now, to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat 
with the poker on his knees thoughtfully raking out the 
ashes between the lower bars, my sister would so dis- 
tinctly construe that innocent action into opposition on 



94 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out 
of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was 
a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All 
in a moment, with nothing to lead up to it, my sister 
would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me 
as it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, 
" Come! there's enough of you! You get along to bed; 
you'' yq given trouble enough for one night, I hope ! " As 
if I had besought them as a favour to bother my life 
out. 

We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed 
likely that we should continue to go on in this way 
for a long time, when, one day Miss Havisham stop- 
ped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my 
shoulder; and said with some displeasure: 

" You are growing tall, Pip ! " 

I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a 
meditative look, that this might be occasioned by cir- 
cumstances over which I had no control. 

She said no more at the time; but she presently stop- 
ped and looked at me again; and presently again ; and 
after that, looked frowning and moody. On the next 
day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was 
over, and I had landed her at her dressing-table, she 
stayed me with a movement of her impatient fingers : 

"Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of 
yours." 

"Joe Gargery, ma'am." 

"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to ? " 

"Yes, Miss Havisham." 

"You had better be apprenticed at once. Would 
Gargery come here with you, and bring your inden- 
tures, do you think ? " 

I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an 
honour to be asked. 

" Then let him come." 

" At any particular time, Miss Havisham?" 

"There, there! I know nothing about times. Let 
him come soon, and come alone with you." 

When I got home at night, and delivered this mes- 
sage for Joe, my sister " went on the Rampage," in a 
more alarming degree than at any previous period. 
She asked me and Joe whether we" supposed she was 
door-mats under our feet, and how we dared to use her 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 95 

so, and what company . we graciously thought she was 
fit for ? When she had exhausted a torrent of such in- 
quiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud 
sobbing, got out the dustpan — which was always a very 
bad sign — put on her coarse apron, and began cleaning 
up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a dry clean- 
ing, she took to pail and a scrubbing-brush, and 
cleaned us out of house and home, so that we stood 
shivering in the back yard. It was ten o'clock at night 
before we ventured to creep in again, and then she 
asked Joe why he hadn't married a Negress Slave at 
once ? Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood 
feeling his whisker and looking dejectedly at me, as if 
he thought it really might have been a better speculation. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



IT was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but 
one, to see Toe arraying himself in his Sunday 
clothes to accompany me to Miss Havisham's. However, 
as he thought his court-suit necessary to the occasion, 
it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better 
in his working dress; the rather, because I knew he 
made himself so dreadfully uncomfortable, entirely on 
my account, and that it was for me he pulled up his 
shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair 
on the crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers. 

At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of 
going to town with us, and being left at Uncle Pum- 
blechook's, and called for " when we had done with 
our fine ladies " — a way of putting the case, from which 
Joe appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge 
was shut up for the day, and Joe inscribed in chalk 
upon the door (as it was his custom to do on the very 
rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyl- 
lable hout, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow sup- 
posed to be flying in the direction he had taken. 

We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a 
very large beaver bonnet, and carrying a basket like 
the Great Seal of England in plaited straw, a pair of 
pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella,, though it was 
a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these 
articles were carried penitentially or ostentatiously; but, 



96 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I rather think they were displayed as articles of prop- 
erty — much as Cleopatra or any other sovereign lady on 
the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or 
procession. 

When we came to Pumblechook's, my sister bounced 
in and left us. As it was almost noon, Joe and I held 
straight on to Miss Havisham's house. Estella opened 
the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe 
took his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in 
both hands: as if he had some urgent reason in his mind 
for being particular to half a quarter of an ounce. 

Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the 
way that I knew so well. I followed next to her, and 
Joe came last. When I looked back at Joe in the long 
passage, he was still weighing his hat with the greatest 
care, and was coming after us in long strides on the 
tips of his toes. 

Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe 
by the coat-cuff and conducted him into Miss Havisham's 
presence. She was seated at her dressing-table, and 
looked round at us immediately. 

" Oh! " said she to Joe. " You are the husband of the 
sister of this boy? " 

I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so 
unlike himself or so like some extraordinary bird; stand- 
ing, as *he did, speechless, with his tuft of feathers 
ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm. 

"You are the husband," repeated Miss Havisham, 
" of the sister of this boy?" 

It was very aggravating; but, throughout the inter- 
view, Joe persisted in addressing Me instead of Miss 
Havisham. 

"Which I meantersay, Pip/' Joe now observed in a 
manner that was at once expressive of forcible argu- 
mentation, strict confidence, and great politeness, "as 
I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time 
what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a 
single man." 

"Well!" said Miss Havisham. "And you have 
reared the boy, with the intention of taking him for 
your apprentice ; is that so, Mr. Gargery ? " 

" You know, Pip," replied Joe, " as you and me were 
ever friends, and it were looked for'ard to betwixt us, 
as being calc'lated to lead to larks. Not but what, Pip, 









GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 97 



if you had ever made objections to the business — such 
as its being open to black and sut, or such-like — not 
but what they would have been attended to, don't you 
see ? " 

" Has the boy/' said Miss Havisham, " ever made 
any objection? Does he like the trade? " 

" Which it is well beknown to yourself , Pip/' returned 
Joe, strengthening his former mixture of argumenta- 
tion, confidence, and politeness, "that it were the wish 
of your own hart." (I saw the idea suddenly break 
upon him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occa- 
sion, before he went on to say) " And there weren't no 
objection on your part, and Pip it were the great wish 
of your hart!" 

It was quite in vain for me to endeavour to make him 
sensible that he ought to speak to Miss Havisham. 
The more I made faces and gestures to him to do it, the 
more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he per- 
sisted in being to Me. 

" Have you brought his indentures with you?" asked 
Miss Havisham. 

" Well, Pip, you know," replied Joe, as if that were a 
little unreasonable, " you yourself see me put 'em in 
my 'at, and therefore you know as they are here." With 
which he took them out, and gave them, not to Miss 
Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of 
the dear good fellow — I know I was ashamed of him — 
when I saw that Estella stood at the back of Miss Havi- 
sham's chair, and that her eyes laughed mischievously. 
I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to 
Miss Havisham. 

"You expected," said Miss Havisham, as she looked 
them over, " no premium with the boy? " 

"Joe!" I remonstrated; for he had made no reply at 
all. " Why don't you answer " 

" Pip," returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were 
hurt, " which I meantersay that were not a question 
requiring a answer betwixt yourself and me, and which 
you know the answer to be full well No. You know it 
to be No, £ip, and wherefore should I say it?" 

Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood 
what he really was, better than I had thought possible, 
seeing what he was there; and took up a little bag from 
the table beside her. 

VOL. i. 7 



98 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 






"Pip has earned a premium here," she said, "and 
here it is. There are five-and-twenty guineas in this 
bag. Give it to your master, Pip ? " 

As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the 
wonder awakened in him by her strange figure and the 
strange room, Joe, even at this pass persisted in address- 
ing me. 

" This is wery liberal on your part, Pip," said Joe, 
"and it is as such received and grateful welcome, 
though never looked for, far nor near nor nowheres. 
And now, old chap," said Joe, conveying to me a sen- J 
sation, first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt 
as if that familiar expression were applied to Miss 
Havisham; "and now, old chap, may we do our duty ! 
May you and me do our duty, both on us by one and 
another, and by them which your liberal present — have 
— conweyed — to be — for the satisfaction of mind — of 
— them as never — "here Joe showed that he had fallen 
into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued 
himself with the words "and from myself far be it!" 
These words had such a round convincing sound for 
him that he said them twice. 

"Good-bye, Pip!" said Miss Havisham. "Let them 
out, Estella." 

"Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?" I asked. 

" No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One 
word!" 

Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I 
heard her say to Joe, in a distinct and emphatic voice, 
" The boy has been a good boy here, and that is his 
reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect 
no other and no more." 

How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able 
to determine; but, I know that when he did get out 
he was steadily proceeding up-stairs instead of coming 
down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went 
after him and laid hold of him. In another minute 
we were outside the gate, and it was locked, and 
Estella was gone. When we stood in the daylight alone 
again, Joe backed up against a wall, and s^id to me, 
"Astonishing!" And there he remained so long, say- 
ing, "Astonishing!" at intervals, so often, that I began 
to think his senses were never coming back. At length 
he prolonged his remark into "Pip, I do assure you 



1] 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 99 

this is as-TON-ishing!" and so, by degrees, became con- 
versational and able to walk away. 

I have reason to think that Joe's intellects were 
brightened by the encounter they had passed through, 
and that on our way to Pumblechook' s he invented a 
subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in 
what took place in Mr. Pumblechook's parlour: where, 
on our presenting ourselves, my sister sat in confer- 
ence with that detested seedsman. 

"Well!" cried my sister, addressing us both at once. 
"And what has happened to you? I wonder you con- 
descend to come back to such poor society as this, I 
am sure I do!" 

" Miss Havisham," said Joe, with a fixed look at me, 
like an effort of remembrance, "made it wery par- 
tick'ler that we should give her — were it compliments 
or respects, Pip?" 

"Compliments," I said. 

"Which that were my own belief," answered Joe 
— "her compliments to Mrs. J. Gargery " 

"Much good they'll do me!" observed my sister; but 
rather gratified too. 

"And wishing," pursued Joe, with another fixed look 
at me, like another effort at remembrance, "that the 
state of Miss Havisham's elth were sitch as would have 
— allowed, were it, Pip?" 

"Of her having the pleasure," I added. 

"Of ladies' company," said Joe. And drew a long 
breath. 

"Well!" cried my sister, with a mollified glance at 
Mr. Pumblechook. "She might have had the polite- 
ness to send that message at first, but it's better late 
than never. And what did she give young Eantipole 
here?" 

"She giv' him," said Joe, "nothing." 

Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on. 

"What she giv'," said Joe, "she giv' to his friends. 
'And by his friends,' were her explanation, ' I mean 
into the hands of his sister, Mrs. J. Gargery.' Them 
were her words; 'Mrs. J. Gargery.' She mayn't have 
know'd," added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, 
"whether it were Joe or Jorge." 

My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the 
elbows of his wooden armchair, and nodded at her and 



100 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



1 



at the fire, as if he had known all about it beforehand. 

"And how much have you got?" asked my sister, 
laughing. Positively, laughing! 

"What would present company say to ten pound?" 
demanded Joe. 

"They'd say/' returned my sister curtly, "pretty well. 
Not too much, but pretty well." 

"It's more than that," said Joe. 

That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately 
nodded, and said, as he rubbed the arms of his chair: 
"It's more than that, Mum." 

"Why you don't mean to say " began my sister. 

"Yes I do Mum," said Pumblechook; "but wait a 
bit. Go on, Joseph. Good in you! Go on!" 

"What would present company say," proceeded Joe, 
"to twenty pound?" 

" Handsome would be the word," returned my sister. 

"Well, then," said Joe, "it's more than twenty 
pound." 

That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, 
and said, with a patronising laugh, " It's more than 
that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up, Joseph! " 

"Then to make an end of it," said Joe, delightedly 
handing the bag to my sister; "it's five-and-twenty 
pound." 

" It's five-and-twenty pound, Mum," echoed that 
basest of swindlers, Pumblechook, rising to shake hands 
with her; " and it's no more than your merits (as I said 
when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy of the 
money!" 

If the villain had stopped here, his case would have 
been sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by 
proceeding to take me into custody, with a right of 
patronage that left all his former criminality far 
behind. 

"Now you see, Joseph and wife," said Pumblechook, 
as he took me by the arm above the elbow, " I am one 
of them that always go right through with what they've 
begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That's 
my way. Bound out of hand." 

" Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook," said my 
sister (grasping the money), " we're deeply beholden to 
you." 

"Never mind me, Mum," returned that diabolical 







GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 101 

corn-chandler. "A pleasure's a pleasure all the world 
over. But this boy, you know; we must have him 
bound. I said I'd see to it — to tell you the truth." 

The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at 
hand, and we at once went over to have me bound ap- 
prentice to Joe in the Magisterial presence. I say, we 
went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook, ex- 
actly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired 
a rick; indeed, it was the general impression in Court 
that I had been taken red-handed; for, as Pumblechook 
shoved me before him through the crowd, I heard some 
people say, "What's he done?" and others, "He's a 
young 'un, too, but looks bad, don't he?" One person 
of mild and benevolent aspect even gave me a tract 
ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man 
fitted up with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters, and en- 
titled TO BE READ IN MY CELL. 

The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher 
pews in it than a church — and with people hanging over 
the pews looking on — and with mighty Justices (one 
with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with 
folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writ- 
ing, or reading the newspapers — and with some shining 
black portraits on the walls, which my unartistic eye 
regarded as a composition of hardbake and sticking- 
plaister. Here, in a corner, my indentures were duly 
signed and attested, and I was "bound;" Mr. Pumble- 
chook holding me all the while as if he had looked in 
on our way to the scaffold, to have those little pre- 
liminaries disposed of. 

When we had come out again, and had got rid of the 
boys who had been put into great spirits by the expec- 
tation of seeing me publicly tortured, and who were 
much disappointed to find that my friends were merely 
rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook's. 
And there my sister became so excited by the twenty- 
five guineas, that nothing would serve her but we must 
have a dinner out of that windfall, at the Blue Boar, 
and that Pumblechook must go over in his chaise-cart, 
and bring the Hubbies and Mr. Wopsle. 

It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day 
I passed. For, it inscrutably appeared to stand to 
reason, in the minds of the whole company, that I was 
an excrescence on the entertainment. And to make it 



lh 



102 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

worse, they all asked me from time to time — in short, 
whenever they had nothing else to do — why I didn't 
enjoy myself? And what could I possibly do then, but 
say that I ivas enjoying myself — when I wasn't! 

However, they were grown up and had their own 
way, and made the most of it. That swindling Pum- 
blechook, exalted into the beneficent contriver of the 
whole occasion, actually took the top of the table; and, 
when he addressed them on the subject of my being 
bound, and had fiendishly congratulated them on my 
being liable to imprisonment if I played at cards, drank 
strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company, or in- 
dulged in other vagaries which the form of my inden- 
tures appeared to contemplate as next to inevitable, he 
placed me standing on a chair beside him to illustrate 
his remarks. 

My only other remembrances of the great festival are, 
That they wouldn't let me go to sleep, but whenever 
they saw me dropping off, woke me up and told me to 
enjoy myself. That, rather late in the evening Mr. 
Wopsle gave us Collin's ode, and threw his blood-stain'd 
sword in thunder down, with such effect, that a waiter 
came in and said, " The Commercials underneath sent 
up their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumbler's 
Arms." That, they were all in excellent spirits on the 
road home, and sang O Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking 
the bass, and asserting with a tremendously strong 
voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that 
piece of music in a most impertinent manner, by want- 
ing to know all about everybody's private affairs) that 
he was the man with his white locks flowing, and that 
he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going. 

Finally, I remember that when I got into my little 
bedroom I was truly wretched, and had a strong con- 
viction on me that I should never like Joe's trade. I 
had liked it once, but once was not now. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



IT is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. 
There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and 
the punishment may be retributive and well deserved ; 
but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 103 

Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, 
because of my sister's temper. But Joe had sanctified 
it, and I believed in it. I had believed in the best par- 
lour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the 
front door as a mysterious portal of the Temple of 
State, whose solemn opening was attended with a sac- 
rifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a 
chaste though not magnificent appartment ; I had be- 
lieved in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and 
independence. Within a single year all this was 
changed. Now it was all coarse and common, and I 
would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it 
on any account. 

How much of my ungracious condition of mind may 
have been my own fault, how much MissHavisham's,how 
much my sister's, is now of no moment to me or to any 
one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. 
Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done. 

Once it had seemed to me that when I should at last 
roll up my shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe's 
'prentice, I should be distinguished and happy. Now 
the reality was in my hold, I only felt that I was dusty 
with the dust of small coal, and that had a weight 
upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a 
feather. There have been occasions in my later life (I ' 
suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as 
if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest and 
romance, to shut me out from anything save dull en- 
durance any more. Never has that curtain dropped 
so heavy and blank, as when my way in life lay 
stretched out straight out before me through the newly- 
entered road of apprenticeship to Joe. 

I remember that at a later period of my " time," I 
used to stand about the churchyard on Sunday even- 
ings, when night was falling, comparing my own per- 
spective with the windy marsh view, and making out 
some dark likeness between them by thinking how flat 
and low both were, agd how on both there came an un- 
known way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was 
quite as dejected on the first working-day of my ap- 
prenticeship as in that after-time; but I am glad to 
know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while my 
indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad 
to know of myself in that connection. 



104 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the 
merit of what I proceed to add was Joe's. It was 
not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faith- 
ful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a 
sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the 
virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense 
of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable 
zeal against the grain. It is not possible to know how 
far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted, duty- 
doing man flies out into the world; but it is very possi- 
ble to know how it has touched one's self in going by, 
and I know right well that any good that intermixed 
itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented 
Joe, and not of restless, aspiring, discontented me. 

What I wanted, who ban say? How can I say, when 
I never knew? What I dreaded was, that in some un- 
lucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest, 
should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one 
of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted 
by the fear that she would, sooner or later, find me out, 
with a black face and hands, doing the coarsest part of 
my work, and would exult over me and despise me. 
Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for 
Joe, and we were singing Old Clem, and when the 
thought how we used to sing it at Miss Havisham's 
would seem to show me Estella's face in the fire, with 
her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes 
scorning me, — often at such a time I would look towards 
those pannels of black night in the wall which the 
wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I 
saw her just drawing her face away, and would believe 
that she had come at last. 

After that, when we went in to supper, the place and 
the meal would have a more homely look than ever, 
and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in 
my own ungracious breast. 



CHAPTER XV. 



AS I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great- 
aunt's room, my education under that preposter- 
ous female terminated. Not, however, until Biddy had 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 105 

imparted everything she knew, from the little cata- 
logue of prices, to a comic song she had once bought 
for a halfpenny. Although the only coherent part of 
the latter piece of literature were the opening lines: 

When I went to Lunnon town sirs, 

Too rul loo rul 

Too rul loo rul 
Wasn't I done very brown sirs ? 

Too rul loo rul 

Too rul loo rul 

— still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition 
by heart with the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect 
that I questioned its merit, except that I thought (as I 
still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of 
the poetry. In my hunger for information, I made pro- 
posals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intellectual 
crumbs upon me: with which he kindly complied. As 
it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a 
dramatic lay -figure, to be contradicted and embraced and 
wept over and bullied and clutched and stabbed and 
knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon declined 
that course of instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle 
in his poetic fury had severely mauled me. 

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This 
statement sounds so well, that I cannot in my con- 
science let it pass unexplained. I wanted to make Joe 
less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of 
my society and less open to Estella's reproach. 

The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of 
study, and a broken slate and a short piece of slate 
pencil were our educational implements: to which Joe 
always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to 
remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to 
acquire, under my tuition, any piece of information 
whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery 
with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else — 
even with a learned air — as if he considered himself to 
be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did. 

It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on 
the river passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, 
when the tide was low, looking as if they belonged to 
sunken ships that were still sailing on at the bottom of 
the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing 
out to sea with their white sails spread, I somehow 



106 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

thought of Miss Havisham and Estella; and whenever 
the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or 
green hill-side or water-line, it was just the same. 
Miss Havisham and Estella and the strange house and 
the strange life appeared to have something to do with 
everything that was picturesque. 

One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had 
so plumed himself on being "most awful dull," that I 
had given him up for the day, I lay on the earthwork 
for sometime with my chin on my hand, descrying 
traces of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the pros- 
pect, in the sky and in the water, until at last I re- 
solved to mention a thought concerning them that had 
been much in my head. 

" Joe," said I; " don't you think I ought to make Miss 
Havisham a visit ? " 

"Well, Pip," returned Joe, slowly considering. "What 
for?" 

" What for, Joe ? What is any visit made for ?" 

" There is some wisits p'r'aps," said Joe, " as for ever 
remains open to the question, Pip. But in regard of 
wisiting Miss Havisham. She might think you wanted 
something — expected something of her." 

" Don't you think I might say that I did not, Joe ?" 

"You might, old chap," said Joe. "And she might 
credit it. Similarly she mightn't." 

Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and 
he pulled hard at his pipe to keep himself from weaken- 
ing it by repetition. 

" You see, Pip," Joe pursued, as soon as he was past 
that danger, "Miss Havisham done the handsome 
thing by you. When Miss Havisham done the hand- 
some thing by you, she called me back to say to me as 
that were all." 

"Yes, Joe. I heard her." , 

"All," Joe repeated, very emphatically. 

"Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her." 

"Which Imeantersay, Pip, it might be that her mean- 
ing were — Make a end on it ! — As you was ! — Me to the 
North, and you to the South ! — Keep in sunders ! " 

I had thought of that too, and it was very far from 
comforting to me to find that he had thought of it; for it 
seemed to render it more probable. 

"But, Joe." 



f 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 107 



"Yes, old chap." 

" Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, 
and, since the day of my being bound, I have never 
thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or shown 
that I remember her." 

" That's true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her 
out a set of shoes all four round — and which I meanter- 
say as even a set of shoes all four round might not act 
acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of hoofs — " 

" I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don't 
mean a present." 

But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and 
must harp upon it. " Or even," said he, " if you was 
helped to knocking her up a new chain for the front 
door — or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for 
general use — or some light fancy article, such as a 
toasting-fork when she took her muffins — or a gridiron 
when she took a sprat or such like " 

" I don't mean any present at all, Joe," I interposed. 

" Well," said Joe, still harping on it as though I had 
particularly pressed it, "if I was yourself, Pip, I 
wouldn't. No, I would not. For what's a door-chain 
when she's got one always up ? And shark-headers is 
open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting- 
fork, you'd go into brass and do yourself no credit. 
And the oncommonest workman can't show himself 
oncommon in a gridiron — for a gridiron is a gridiron," 
said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he 
were endeavouring to arouse me from a fixed de- 
lusion, "and you may haim at what you like, but a 
gridiron will come out, either by your leave or again 
your leave, and you can't help yourself " 

" My dear Joe," I cried, in desperation, taking hold 
of his coat, "don't go on in that way. I never thought 
of making Miss Havisham any present." 

" No, Pip," Joe assented, as if he had been contend- 
ing for that, all along; "and what I say to you is, you 
are right, Pip." 

"Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as 
we are rather slack just now, if you would give me 
a half -holiday to-morrow, I think I would go up-town 
and make a call on Miss Est — Havisham." 

" Which her name," said Joe, gravely, ain't Estavi- 
sham, Pip, unless she has been rechris'ened," 



108 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What 
do you think of it, Joe ? " 

In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, 
he thought well of it. But, he was particular in stipu- 
lating that if I were not received with cordiality, or if 
I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a visit 
which had no ulterior object but was simply one of 
gratitude for a favour received, then this experimental 
trip should have no successor. By these conditions I 
promised to abide. 

Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose 
name was Orlick. He pretended that his christian 
name was Dolge — a clear impossibility — but he was a 
fellow of that obstinate disposition that I believe him 
to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, 
but wilfully to have imposed that name upon the vil- 
lage as an affront to its understanding. He was a 
broad-shouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of great 
strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He 
never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but 
would slouch in as if by mere accident; and when he 
went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or went 
away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the 
Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was 
going and no intention of ever coming back. He lodged 
at a sluice-keeper's out on the marshes, and on working 
days would come slouching from his hermitage, with 
his hands in his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a 
bundle round his neck and dangling on his back. On 
Sundays he mostly lay all day on sluice-gates, or stood 
against ricks and barns. He always slouched, loco- 
motively, with his eyes on the ground; and, when ac- 
costed or otherwise required to raise them, he looked up 
in a half resentful, half puzzled way, as though the 
only thought he ever had, was, that it was rather an 
odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking. 

This morose journeyman had no liking forme. When 
I was very small and timid, he gave me to understand 
that the Devil lived in a black corner of the forge, and 
that he knew the fiend very well : also that it was 
necessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, 
with a live boy, and that I might consider myself^ 
fuel. When I became Joe's' prentice, Orlick, was 
perhaps confirmed by some suspicion that I should dis- 




GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 109 

place him; howbeit,he liked me still less. Not that he 
ever said any thing, or did anything, openly importing 
hostility; I only noticed that he always beat his sparks 
in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, 
he came in out of time. 

Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when 
I reminded Joe of my half -holiday. He said nothing at 
the momont, for he and Joe had just got a piece of hot 
iron between them, and I was at the bellows ; but by- 
and-by he said, leaning on his hammer: 

" Now, master ! Sure you're not a going to favour 
only one of us. If Young Pip has a half -holiday, do as 
much for Old Orlick." I suppose he was about five-and- 
twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient 
person. 

" Why, what'll you do with a half -holiday, if you get 
it ? " said Joe. 

" What'll I do with it ! What'll he do with it ? I'll 
do as much with it as him" said Orlick. 

" As to Pip, he's going up-town," said Joe. 

" Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's a going up-town," 
retorted that worthy. "Two can go up-town. Tain't 
only one wot can go up-town." 

" Don't lose your temper," said Joe. 

" Shall if I like," growled Orlick. " Some and their 
up-towning ! Now, master ! Come. No favouring in 
this shop. Be a man ! " 

The master refusing to entertain the subject until the 
journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at 
the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar^ made at me with 
it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked 
it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out 
— as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my 
spirting blood — and finally said, when he had hammered 
himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on 
his hammer: 

" Now, master!" 

" Are you all right now ? " demanded Joe. 

" Ah ! I am all right," said gruff Old Orlick. 

" Then, as in general you stick to your work as well 
as most men," said Joe, " let it be a half -holiday for 
all." 

My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within 
hearing — she was a most unscrupulous spy and listener 



110 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

— and she instantly looked in at one of the windows. 

" Like you, you fool!" said she to Joe, giving holi- 
days to great idle hulkers like that. You are a rich 
man, upon my life, to waste wages in that way. I wish 
J was his master!" 

" You'd be everybody's master, if you durst," retorted 
Orlick, with an ill-favoured grin. 

("Let her alone," said Joe.) 

"I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues," re- 
turned my sister, beginning to work herself into a 
mighty rage. "And I couldn't be a match for the 
noodles, without being a match for your master, who's 
the dunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn't 
be a match for the rogues, without being a match for 
you, who are the blackest-looking and the worst rogue 
between this and France.. Now!" 

" You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery," growled the 
journeyman. "If that makes a judge of rogues, you 
ought to be a good'un," 

(" Let her alone, will you ?" said Joe.) 

" What did you say?" cried my sister, beginning to 
scream. " What did you say? What did that fellow 
Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, with my 
husband standing by? O! O! O!" Each of these ex- 
clamations was a shriek; and I must remark of my sis- 
ter, what is equally true of all the violent women I have 
ever seen, that passion was no excuse for her, because 
it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she 
consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains 
to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by 
regular stages; " what was the name that he gave me 
before the base man who swore to defend me? O! Hold 
me! O!" 

"Ah-h-h!" growled the journeyman, between his 
teeth, " I'd hold you, if you was my wife. I'd hold you 
under the pump, and choke it out of you." 

("I tell you, let her alone," said Joe.) 

"Oh! To hear him!" cried my sister, with a clap of 
her hands and a scream together — which was her next 
stage. " To hear the names he's giving me! That Or- 
lick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With 
my husband standing by! O! O!" Here my sister, 
after a fit of clappings and screamings, beat her hands 
upon hex* bosom and upon her knees, and threw her 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Ill 

cap off, and pulled her hair down — which were the last 
stages on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a per- 
fect fury and a complete success, she made a dash at 
the door, which I had fortunately locked. 

What could the wretched Joe do now, after his dis- 
regarded parenthetical interruptions, but stand up to 
his journeyman, and ask him what he meant by inter- 
fering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further 
whether he was man enough to come on? Old Orlick 
felt that the situation admitted of nothing less than 
coming on, and was on his defence straightway; so, 
without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt 
aprons, they went at one another, like two giants. But, 
if any man in that neighbourhood could stand up long 
against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he had 
been of no more account than the pale young gentle- 
man, was very soon among the coal-dust, and in no 
hurry to come out of it. Then, Joe unlocked the door 
and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible 
at the window (but who had seen the fight first I think), 
and who was carried into the house and laid down, and 
who was recommended to revive, and would do nothing 
but struggle and clench her hands in Joe's hair. Then 
came that singular calm and silence which succeed all 
uproars; and then with the vague sensation which I 
have always connected with such a lull — namely, that 
it was Sunday, and somebody was dead— I went up- 
stairs to dress myself. 

When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick 
sweeping up, without any other traces of discomposure 
than a slit in one end of Orlick's nostrils, which was 
neither repressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had 
appeared from the Jolly Bargemen, and they were 
sharing it by turns in a peaceable manner. The lull 
had a sedative and philosophical influence on Joe, who 
followed me out into the road to say, as a parting 
observation that might do me good, "On the Rampage, 
Pip, and off the Rampage, Pip; — such is Life!" 

With what absurd emotions (for, we think the feel- 
ings that are very serious in a man quite comical in a 
boy) I found myself again going to Miss Havisham's, 
matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed 
the gate many times before I could make up my mind 
to ring. Nor, how I debated whether I should go away 



112 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

without ringing; nor, how I should undoubtedly have 
gone, if my time had been my own, to come back. 

Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella. 

"How, then? You here again?" said Miss Pocket. 
"What do you want?" 

When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havi- 
sham was, Sarah evidently deliberated whether or no 
she should send me about my business. But, unwilling 
to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and presently 
brought the sharp message that I was to "come up." 

Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was 
alone. " Well ? " said she, fixing her eyes upon me. " I 
hope you want nothing ? You'll get nothing." 

"No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to 
know that I am doing very well in my apprenticeship, 
and am always much obliged to you." 

" There, there!" with the old restless fingers. "Come 
now and then; come on your birthday. — Ay!" she cried 
suddenly, turning herself and her chair towards me, 
" You are looking round for Estella? Hey ? " 

I had been looking round — in fact, for Estella — and I 
stammered that I hoped she was well. 

"Abroad," said Miss Havisham; "educating for a 
lady; far out of reach; prettier than ever; admired by 
all who see her. Do you feel that you have lost her?"* 

There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utter- 
ance of the last words, and she broke into such a dis- 
agreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what to say. She 
spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing 
me. When the gate was closed upon me by Sarah of 
the walnut-shell countenance, I felt more than ever 
dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and 
with everything ; and that was all I took by that 
motion. 

As I was loitering along the High-street looking in 
disconsolately at the shop windows, and thinking what 
I would buy if I were a gentleman, who should come 
out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had 
in his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, 
in which he had that moment invested sixpence, with 
the view of heaping every word of it on the head of 
Pumblechook, with whom he was going to drink tea. 
No sooner did he see me, than he appeared to con- 
sider that a special Providence had put a 'prentice in 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 113 

his way to be read at; and he laid hold of me, and 
insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumble- 
chookian parlour. As I knew it would be miserable 
at home, and as the nights were dark and the way 
was dreary, and almost any companionship on the 
road was better than none, I made no great resist- 
ance; consequently, we turned into Pumblechook's 
just as the street and the shops were lighting up. 

As I never assisted at any other representation of 
George Barnwell, I don't know how long it may usually 
take; but I know very well that it took until half -past 
nine o'clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle 
got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the 
scaffold, he became so much slower than at any former 
period of his disgraceful career. I thought it a little 
too much that he should complain of being cut short in 
his flower after all, as if he had not been running to 
seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his course began. This, 
however, was a mere question of length and wearisome- 
ness. What stung me was the identification of the 
whole affair with my unoffending self. When Barn- 
well began to go wrong, I declare I felt positively apol- 
ogetic, Pumblechook's indignant stare so taxed me with 
it. Wopsle, too, took pains to present me in the worst 
light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to 
murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances 
whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on every 
occasion; it became sheer monomania in my master's 
daughter to care a button for me; and all I can say for 
my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal 
morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feeble- 
ness of my character. Even after I was happily hanged 
and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat 
staring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, " Take 
warning, boy, take warning ! " as if it were a well- 
known fact that I contemplated murdering a near 
relation, provided I could only induce one to have the 
weakness to become my benefactor. 

It was a very dark night when it was all over, and 
when I set out with Mr. Wopsle on the walk home. 
Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and it fell 
wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite 
out of the lamp's usual place apparently, and its rays 
looked solid substance on the fog. We were noticing 
vol. i. 8 






114 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. * 

this, and saying how that the mist rose with a change 
of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes, when 
we came upon a man, slouching under the lee of the 
turnpike house. 

" Halloa! " we said, stopping. " Orlick there?" 

" Ah! " he answered, slouching out. " I was standing 
by, a minute, on the chance of company." 

" You are late," I remarked. 

Orlick not unnaturally answered, " Well? And you're 
late." 

"We have been," said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his 
late performance, " we have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, 
in an intellectual evening." 

Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about 
that, and we all went on together. I asked him pres- 
ently whether he had been spending his half -holiday 
up and down town? 

"Yes," said he, "all of it. I come in behind your- 
self. I didn't see you, but I must have been pretty close 
behind you. By-the-by, the guns is going again." 

"At the Hulks?" said I. 

"Ay! There's some of the birds flown from the 
cages. The guns have been going since dark, about. 
You'll hear one presently." 

In effect, we had not walked many yards further 
when the well-remembered boom came towards us* 
deadened by the mist, and heavily rolled away along 
the low grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing 
and threatening the fugitives. 

"A good night for cutting off in," said Orlick. "We'd 
be puzzled how to bring down a jail-bird on the wing, 
to-night." 

The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought 
about it in silence. Mr. Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle 
of the evening's tragedy, fell to meditating aloud in his 
garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his hands in his 
pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very 
dark, very wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along. 
Now and then the sound of the signal cannon broke 
upon us again, and again rolled sulkily along the course 
of the river. I kept myself to myself and my thoughts. 
Mr. Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and exceed- 
ingly game on Bosworth Field, and in the greatest 
agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick sometimes growled, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 115 

" Beat it out, beat it out — old Clem ! With a clink for 
the stout — Old Clem! " I thought he had been drinking, 
but he was not drunk. 

Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we 
approached it, took us past the Three Jolly Bargemen, 
which we were surprised to find — it being eleven 
o'clock — in a state of commotion, with the door wide 
open, and unwonted lights that had been hastily caught 
up and put down, scattered about. Mr. Wopsle dropped 
in to ask what was the matter (surmising that a con- 
vict had been taken), but came running out in a great 
hurry. 

"There's something wrong," said he, without stop- 
ping, " up at your place, Pip. Run all!" 

" What is it?" I asked, keeping up with him. So did 
Orlick, at my side. 

" I can't quite understand. The house seems to have 
been violently entered when Joe Gargery was out. 
Supposed by convicts. Somebody has been attacked 
and hurt." 

We were running too fast to admit of more being 
said, and we made no stop until we got into our kitchen. 
It was full of people ; the whole village was there, or 
in the yard ; and there was a surgeon, and there was 
Joe, and there were a group of women, all on the floor 
in the midst of the kitchen. The unemployed bystand- 
ers drew back when they saw me, and so I became 
aware of my sister — lying without sense or movement 
on the bare boards where she had been knocked down 
by a tremendous blow on the back of the head, dealt by 
some unknown hand when her face was turned towards 
the fire — destined never to be on the Rampage again, 
while she was wife of Joe. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



TITITH my head full of George Barnwell, I was at 
* ^ first disposed to believe that I must have had some 
hand in the attack upon my sister, or at all events that 
as her near relation, popularly known to be under obli- 
gations to her, I was a more legitimate object of sus- 
picion than any one else. But when, in the clearer 



116 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

light of next morning, I began to reconsider the matter 
and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I took 
another view of the case, which was more reasonable. 

Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking 
his pipe, from a quarter after eight o'clock to a quarter 
before ten. While he was there, my sister had been 
seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged 
Good Night with a farm-labourer going home. The 
man could not be more particular as to the time at 
which he saw her (he got into dense confusion when he 
tried to be), than that it must have been before nine. 
When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he 
found her struck down on the floor, and promptly called 
in assistance. The fire had not then burnt unusually 
low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long ; the 
candle, however, had been blown out. 

Nothing had been taken away from any part of the 
house. Neither, beyond the blowing out of the candle 
— which stood on a table between the door and my 
sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the 
fire and was struck — was there any disarrangement of 
the kitchen, excepting such as she herself had made, in 
falling and bleeding. But, there was one remarkable 
piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck 
with something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; 
after the blows were dealt, something heavy had Ibeen 
thrown down at her with considerable violence, as she 
lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when 
Joe picked her up, was a convict's leg-iron which had 
been filed asunder. 

Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, de- 
clared it to have been filed asunder some time ago. 
The hue and cry going off to the Hulks, and people 
coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion was 
corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it 
had left the prison-ships to which it undoubtedly had 
once belonged ; but they claimed to know for certain 
that that particular manacle had not been worn by 
either of two convicts who had escaped last night. 
Further, one of those two was already retaken, and 
had not freed himself of his iron. 

Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my 
own here. I believed the iron to be my convict's iron — 
the iron I had seen and heard him filing at, on the 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 117 

marshes — but my mind did not accuse him of having 
put it to its latest use. For, I believed one of two other 
persons to have become possessed of it, and to have 
turned it to this cruel account. Either Orlick, or the 
strange man who had shown me the file. 

Now, as to Orlick ; he had gone to town exactly as he 
told us when we picked him up at the turnpike, he had 
been seen about town all the evening, he had been in 
divers companies in several public-houses, and he had 
come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle. There was 
nothing against him, save the quarrel ; and my sister 
had quarrelled with him, and with everybody else about 
her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man ; if he 
had come back for his two bank-notes there could have 
been no dispute about them, because my sister was 
fully prepared to restore them. Besides, there had been 
no altercation ; the assailant had come in so silently 
and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could 
look round. " 

It was horrible to think that I had provided the 
weapon, however undesignedly, but I could hardly 
think otherwise. I suffered unspeakable trouble while 
I considered and reconsidered whether I should at last 
dissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the 
story. For months afterwards, I every day settled the 
question finally in the negative, and reopened and re- 
argued it next morning. The contention came, after 
all, to this ; — the secret was such an old one now, had 
so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I 
could not tear it away. In addition to the dread that, 
having led up to so much mischief, it would be now 
more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me if he be- 
lieved it, I had the further restraining dread that he 
would not believe it, but would assert it with the fabu- 
lous dogs and veal-cutlets as a monstrous invention. 
However, I temporized with myself, of course — for, was 
I not wavering between right and wrong, when the 
thing is always done ? — and resolved to make a full dis- 
closure if I should see any such new occasion as a new 
chance of helping in the discovery of the assailant. 

The Constables, and the Bow Street men from London 
— for, this happened in the days of the extinct red waist- 
coated police — were about the house for a week or two, 
and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like 



118 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

authorities doing in other such cases. They took up 
several obviously wrong people, and they ran their 
heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in 
trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of 
trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also, 
they stood about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with 
knowing and reserved looks that filled the whole neigh- 
bourhood with admiration; and they had a mysterious 
manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good 
as taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never 
did it. 

Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, 
my sister lay very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, 
so that she saw objects multiplied, and grasped at vis- 
ionary teacups and wine-glasses instead of the realities; 
her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; 
and her speech was unintelligible. When, at last, she 
came round so far as to be helped down stairs, it was still 
necessary to keep my slate always by her, that she might 
indicate in writing what she could not indicate in 
speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a 
more than indifferent speller, and as Joe was a more 
than indifferent reader, extraordinary complications 
arose between them, which I was always called in to 
solve. The administration of mutton instead of medicine, 
the substitution of Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, 
were among the mildest of my own mistakes. 

However, her temper was greatly improved, and she 
was patient. A tremulous uncertainty of the action of all 
her limbs soon became a part of her regular state, and 
afterwards, at intervals of two or three months, she 
would often put her hands to her head, and would then 
remain for about a week at a time in some gloomy 
aberration of mind. We were at a loss to find a suit- 
able attendant for her, until a circumstance happened 
conveniently to relieve us. Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt 
conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she 
had fallen, and Biddy became a part of our estab- 
lishment. 

It may have been about a month after my sister's 
reappearance in the kitchen, when Biddy came to us 
with a small speckled box containing the whole of her 
wordly effects, and became a blessing to the household. 
Above all, she was a a blessing to Joe, for the dear old 












GREAT EXPECTATIONS. lid 



fellow was sadly cut up by the constant contemplation 
of the wreck of his wife, and had been accustomed, 
while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me every 
now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, 
" such a fine figure of a woman as she once were, Pip! " 
Biddy instantly taking the cleverest charge of her as 
though she had studied her from infancy, Joe became : 
able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his ; 
life, and to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and 
then for a change that did him good. It was charac- 
teristic of the police people that they had all more or 
less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and 
that they had to a man concurred in regarding him as 
one of the deepest spirits they had ever encountered. 

Biddy's first triumph in her new office, was to solve a 
difficulty that had completely vanquished me. I had 
tried hard at it, but had made nothing of it. Thus it 
was: 

Again and again and again, my sister had traced 
upon the slate, a character that looked like a curious 
T, and then with the utmost eagerness had called our 
attention to it as something she particularly wanted. 
I had in vain tried everything producible that began 
with a T, from tar to toast and tub. At length it had 
come into my head that the sign looked like a hammer, 
and on my lustily calling that word in my sister's ear, 
she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed 
a qualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our 
hammers, one after another, but without avail. Then 1 
bethought me of a crutch, the shape being much the 
same, and I borrowed one in the village, and displayed 
it to my sister with considerable confidence. But she 
shook her head to that extent when she was shown it, 
that we were terrified lest in her weak and shattered 
state she should dislocate her neck. 

When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to 
understand her, this mysterious sign reappeared on the 
slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully at it, heard my ex- 
planation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked 
thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on 
the slate by his initial letter), and ran into the forge, 
followed by Joe and me. 

"Why, of course !" cried Biddy, with an exultant 
face. " Don't you see ? It's him" 



GREAT EXPECTATION! 

Orlick, without a doubt ! She had lost his name, and 
could only signify him by his hammer. We told him 
why we wanted him to come into the kitchen, and he 
slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his 
arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came 
slouching out, with a curious loose vagabond bend in 
the knees that strongly distinguished him. 

I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce 
him, and that I was disappointed by the different re- 
sult. She manifested the greatest anxiety to be on 
good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by 
his being at length produced, and motioned that she 
would have him given something to drink. She watched 
his countenance as if she were particularly wishful to 
be assured that he took kindly to his reception, she 
showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and there 
was an air of humble propitiation in all she did, such 
as I have seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a 
hard master. After that day, a day rarely passed 
without her drawing the hammer on her slate, and 
without Orlick's slouching in and standing doggedly 
before her, as if he knew no more than I did what to 
make of it. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



I NOW fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship- 
life, which was varied, beyond the limits of the 
village and the marshes, by no more remarkable cir- 
cumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my 
paying another visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss 
Sarah Pocket still on duty at the gate, I found Miss 
Havisham just as I had left her, and she spoke of 
Estella in the very same way, if not in the very same 
words. The interview lasted but a few minutes, and 
she gave me a guinea when I was going, and told me 
to come again on my next birthday. I may mention at 
once that this became an annual custom. I tried to 
decline taking the guinea on the first occasion, but 
with no better effect than causing her to ask me very 
angrily, if I expected more ? Then, and after that, I 
took it. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 121 

So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow 
light in the darkened room; the faded spectre in the 
chair by the dressing-table glass, that I felt as if the 
stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that myste- 
rious place, and while I and everything else outside it 
grew older, it stood still. Daylight never entered the 
house as to my thoughts and remembrances of it, any 
more than as to the actual fact. It bewildered me, and 
under its influence I continued at heart to hate my 
trade and to be ashamed of home. 

Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in 
Biddy, however. Her shoes came up at the heel, her 
hair grew bright and neat, her hands were always 
clean. She was not beautiful — she was common, and 
could not be like Estella — but she was pleasant and 
wholesome and sweet-tempered. She had not been with 
us more than a year (I remember her being newly out 
of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed 
to myself one evening that she had curiously thought- 
ful and attentive eyes ; eyes that were very pretty and 
very good. 

It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I 
was poring at — writing some passages from a book, to 
improve myself in two ways at once by a sort of 
stratagem — and seeing Biddy observant of what I was 
about. I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her 
needlework without laying it down. 

"Biddy," said I, "how do you manage it ? Either I 
am very stupid, or you are very clever." 

" What is it that I manage ? I don't know," returned 
Biddy, smiling. 

She managed our whole domestic life, and wonder- 
fully too ; but I did not mean that, though that made 
what I did mean more surprising. 

" How do you manage Biddy," said I, " to learn every- 
thing that I learn, and always to keep up with me ? " 
I was beginning to be rather vain of my knowledge, for 
I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the 
greater part of my pocket-money for similar invest- 
ment ; though I have no doubt, now, that the little I 
knew was extremely dear at the price. 

"I might as well ask you," said Biddy, "how you 
manage?" 

" No ; because when I come in from the forge of a 



122 GREAT EXPECTATION. 

night any one can see me turning to at it. But you 
never turn to at it, Biddy." 

" I suppose I must catch it— like a cough/' said Biddy, 
quietly; and went on with her sewing. 

Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden 
chair and looked at Biddy sewing away with her head 
on one side, I began to think her rather an extraordi- 
nary girl. For, I called to mind now, that she was 
equally accomplished in the terms of our trade, and the 
names of our different sorts of work, and our various 
tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy knew. Theo- 
retically, she was already as good a blacksmith as I, or 
better. 

"You are one of those, Biddy," said I, "who make 
the most of every chance. You never had a chance be- 
fore you came here, and see how improved you are! Vj 

Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with 
her sewing. "I was your first teacher though; wasn't 
I?" said she, as she sewed. 

"Biddy!" I exclaimed, in amazement. "Why, you 
are crying ! " 

" No I am not," said Biddy, looking up and laughing. 
" What put that in your head ?" 

What could have put it in my head, but the glisten- 
ing of a tear as it dropped on her work? I sat silent, 
recalling what a drudge she had been until Mr. Wop- 
sle's great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of 
living, so highly desirable to be got rid of by some peo- 
ple. I recalled the hopeless circumstances by which 
she had been surrounded in the miserable little shop and 
the miserable little noisy evening school, with that 
miserable old bundle of incompetence always to be 
dragged and shouldered. I reflected that even in those 
untoward times there must have been latent in Biddy 
what was now developing, for, in my first uneasiness 
and discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter 
of course. Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more 
tears, and while I looked at her and thought about it 
all, it occurred to me that perhaps I had not been suffici- 
ently grateful to Biddy. I might have been too reserved, 
and should have patronised her more (though I did not 
use that precise word in my meditations), with my 
confidence. 

" Yes, Biddy," I observed^ when I had done turning 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 123 

it over, "you were my first teacher, and that at a time 
when we little thought of ever being together like this, 
in this kitchen." 

"Ah, poor thing!" replied Biddy. It was like her 
self-forgetf ulness, to transfer the remark to my sister, 
and to get up and be busy about her, making her more 
comfortable; " that's sadly true! " 

" Well," said I, " we must talk together a little 
more, as we used to do. And I must consult you 
a littlemore, as I used to do. Let us have a quiet 
walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long 
chat." 

My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than 
readily undertook the care of her on that Sunday after- 
noon, and Biddy and I went out together. It was sum- 
mer-time and lovely weather. When we had passed 
the village and the church and the churchyard, and 
were out on the marshes, and began to see the sails of the 
ships as they sailed on, I began to combine Miss Havi- 
sham and Estella with the prospect, in my usual way. 
When we came to the river-side and sat down on the 
bank, with the water rippling at our feet, making it all 
more quiet than it would have been without that sound, 
I resolved that it was a good time and place for the ad- 
mission of Biddy into my inner confidence. 

" Biddy," said I, after binding her to secrecy, " I want 
to be a gentleman." 

"Oh, I wouldn't, if I was you!" she returned. "I 
don't think it would answer." 

"Biddy," said I, with some severity, "I have partic- 
ular reasons for wanting to be a gentleman." 

"Youk:now best, Pip; but don't you think you are 
happier as you are ? " 

"Biddy," I exclaimed, impatiently, "I am not at all 
happy as I am. I am disgusted with my calling and 
with my life. I have never taken to either, since I was 
bound. Don't be absurd." 

"Was I absurd?" said Biddy, quietly raising her 
eyebrows; "I am sorry for that; I didn't mean to be. 
I only want you to do well, and be comfortable." 

"Well then, understand once for all that I never 
shall or can be comfortable — or anything but miserable 
— there, Biddy ! — unless I can lead a very different sort 
of life from the life I lead now." 



124 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" That's a pity ! " said Biddy, shaking her head with 
a sorrowful air 

Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the 
singular kind of quarrel with myself which I was 
always carrying on, I was half inclined to shed tears of 
vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to 
her sentiment and my own. I told her she was right 
and I knew it was much to be regretted, but still it was 
not to be helped. 

" If I could have settled down," I said to Biddy, pluck- 
ing up the short grass within reach, much as I had once 
upon a time pulled my feelings out of my hair and 
kicked them into the brewery wall: "if I could have 
settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as 
I was when I was little, I know it would have been 
much better for me. You and I and Joe would have 
wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have 
gone partners when I was out of my time, and I might 
even have grown up to keep company with you, and 
we might have sat on this very bank on a fine Sunday, 
quite different people. I should have been good enough 
for you; shouldn't I, Biddy?" 

Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, 
and returned for answer, "Yes; I am not over-particu- 
lar." It scarcely sounded flattering, but I knew she 
meant well. 

"Instead of that," said I, plucking up more grass and 
chewing a blade or two, " see how I am going on. Dis- 
satisfied, and uncomfortable, and — what would it 
signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had 
told me so!" 

Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and 
looked far more attentively at me than she had looked 
at the sailing ships. 

" It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to 
say," she remarked, directing her eyes to the ships 
again. " Who said it? " 

I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without 
quite seeing where I was going to. It was not to be 
shuffled off now, however, and I answered, "The beau- 
tiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more 
beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her 
dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her 
account." Having made this lunatic confession, I be- 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 125 

gan to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had 
some thoughts of following it." 

"Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her, or 
to gain her over ? " Biddy quietly asked nie, after a 
pause. 

"I don't know," I moodily answered. 

"Because, if it is to spite her," Biddy pursued, "I 
should think — but you know best — that might be better 
and more independently done by caring nothing for her 
words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think 
— but you know best — she was not worth gaining over." 

Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. 
Exactly what was perfectly manifest to me at the 
moment. But how could I, a poor dazed village lad, 
avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best 
and wisest of men fall every day? 

"It maybe all quite true," said I to Biddy, "but I 
admire her dreadfully." 

In short, I turned over on my face when I came to 
that, and got a good grasp on the hair on each side of 
my head, and wrenched it well. All the while knowing 
the madness of my heart to be so very mad and mis- 
placed, that I was quite conscious it would have served my 
face right, if I had lifted it up by my hair, and knocked 
it against the pebbles as a punishment for belonging to 
such an idiot. 

Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason 
no more with me. She put her hand, which was a com- 
fortable hand, though roughened by work, upon my 
hands, one after another, and gently took them out of 
my hair. Then she softly patted my shoulder in a 
soothing way, while with my face upon my sleeve I 
cried a little — exactly as I had done in the brewery 
yard — and felt vaguely convinced that I was very much 
ill used by somebody, or by everybody; I can't say 
which. 

"I am glad of one thing," said Biddy, "and that is, 
that you have felt you could give me your confi- 
dence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing, and that 
is, that of course you know you may depend upon my 
keeping it and always so far deserving it. If your first 
teacher (dear! such a poor one, and so much in need of 
being taught herself!) had been your teacher at the 
present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she 



i26 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

would set. But it would be a hard one to learn, and you 
have got beyond her, and it's of no use now." So, with 
a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from the bank, and said, 
with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, "Shall we 
walk a little further, or go home?" 

"Biddy," I cried, getting up, putting my arm around 
her neck, and giving her a kiss, "I shall always tell 
you everything." 

"Till you're a gentleman," said Biddy. 

"You know I never shall be, so that's always. Not 
that I have any occasion to tell you anything, for you 
know everything I know — as I told you at home the 
other night?" 

"Ah! " said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked 
away at the ships. And then repeated, with her former 
pleasant change; " shall we walk a little further, or go 
home?" 

I said to Biddy we would walk a little further, and we 
did so, and the summer afternoon toned down into the 
summer evening, and it was very beautiful. I began to 
consider whether I was not more naturally and whole- 
somely situated, after all, in these circumstances, than 
playing beggar my neighbour bj candlelight in the room 
with the stopped clocks, and being despised by Estella. 
I thought it would be very good for me if I could get her 
out of my head, with all the rest of those remembrances 
and fancies, and could go to work determined to relish 
what I had to do, and stick to it, and make the best of 
it. I asked myself the question whether I did not surely 
know that if Estella were beside me at that moment 
instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable ? I was 
obliged to admit that I did know it for a certainty, and 
I said to myself, " Pip, what a fool you are! " 

We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that 
Biddy said seemed right. Biddy was never insulting, 
or capricious, or Biddy to-day and somebody else to-mor- 
row; she would have derived only pain, and no pleasure, 
from giving me pain; she would far rather have wounded 
her own breast than mine. How could it be, then, that 
I did not like her much the better of the two ? 

"Biddy," said I, when we were walking homeward, 
" I wish you could put me right." 
"I wish I could!" said Biddy. 
" If I could only get myself to fall in love with you — 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 127 

you don't mind my speaking so openly to such an old 
acquaintance?" 

" Oh dear, not at all! " said Biddy. " Don't mind me." 

" If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the 
thing for me." 

"But you never will, you see," said Biddy. 

It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, 
as it would have done if we had discussed it a few hours 
before. I therefore observed I was not quite sure of that. 
But Biddy said she was, and she said it decisively. In 
my heart I believed her to be right; and yet I took it 
rather ill, too, that she should be so positive on the point. 

When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross 
an embankment, and get over a stile near a sluice-gate. 
There started up, from the gate, or from the rushes, or 
from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way), 
Old Orlick. 

"Halloa!" he growled, "where are you two going ?" 

"Where should we be going, but home?" 

" Well then," said he, " I'm jiggered if I don't see you 
home!" , 

This penalty of being jiggered was a favourite suppos- 
ititious case of his. He attached no definite meaning 
to the word that I am aware of, but used it, like his own 
pretended christian name, to affront mankind, and con- 
vey an idea of something savagely damaging. When I 
was younger, I had had a general belief that if he had 
jiggered me personally, he would have done it with a 
sharp and twisted hook. 

Biddy was much against his going with us, and said 
to me in a whisper, "Don't let him come; I don't like 
him." As I did not like him either, I took the liberty of 
saying that we thanked him, but we didn't want seeing 
home. He received that piece of information with a yell 
of laughter, and dropped back, but came slouching after 
us at a little distance. 

Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of hav- 
ing had a hand in that murderous attack of which my 
sister had never been able to give any account, I asked 
her why she did not like him ? 

"Oh!" she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he 
slouched after us, " because I — I am afraid he likes me/' 

"Did he ever tell you he liked you?" I asked in- 
dignantly. 



128 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"No," said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, 
"he never told me so; but he dances at me, whenever 
he can catch my eye." 

However novel and peculiar this testimony of attach- 
ment, I did not doubt the accuracy of the interpretation. 
I was very hot indeed upon Old Orlick's daring to 
admire her; as hot as if it were an outrage on 
myself. 

" But it makes no difference to you, you know," said 
Biddy, calmly. 

"No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don't 
like it; I don't approve of it." 

" Nor I neither," said Biddy. " Though that makes no 
difference to you." 

" Exactly," said I; " but I must tell you I should have 
no opinion of you, Biddy, if he danced at you with your 
own consent." 

I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, when- 
ever circumstances were favourable to his dancing at 
Biddy, got before him, to obscure that demonstration. 
He had struck root in Joe's establishment, by reason of 
my sister's sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried 
to get him dismissed. He quite understood and recip- 
rocated my good intentions, as I had reason to know 
thereafter. 

And now, because my mind was not confused enough 
before, I complicated its confusion fifty thousand-fold, 
by having states and seasons when I was clear that 
Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that 
the plain, honest working life to which I was born had 
nothing in it to be ashamed of, but offered me sufficient 
means of self-respect and happiness. At those times I 
would decide conclusively that my disaffection to dear 
old Joe and the forge, was gone, and that I was grow- 
ing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and to keep 
company with Biddy — when all in a moment some con- 
founding remembrance of the Havisham days would 
fall upon me, like a destructive missile, and scatter my 
wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; 
and often, before I had got them well together, they 
would be dispersed in all directions by one stray 
thought, that perhaps after all Miss Havisham 
was, going to make my fortune when my time was 
out. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 129 

If my time had run out, it would have left me still at 
the height of my perplexities, I dare say. It never did 
run out, however, but was brought to a premature end, 
as I proceed to relate. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

IT was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, 
and it was a Saturday night. There was a group 
assembled round the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen, 
attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper 
aloud. Of that group I was one. 

A highly popular murder had been committed, and 
Mr. Wopsle was imbrued in blood to the eyebrows. He 
gloated over every abhorrent adjective in the descrip- 
tion; and identified himself with every witness at the 
Inquest. He faintly moaned "I am done for," as the 
victim, and he barbarously bellowed, " I'll serve you 
out," as the murderer. He gave the medical testimony 
in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and he 

Eiped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had 
eard blows, to an extent so very paralytic as to suggest 
a doubt regarding the mental competency of that wit- 
ness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle's hands, became 
Timon of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed 
himself thoroughly, and we all enjoyed ourselves, and 
were delightfully comfortable. In this cozy state of 
mind we came to the verdict Wilful Murder. 

Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange 
gentleman leaning over the back of the settle opposite 
me, looking on. There was an expression of contempt 
on his face, and he bit the side of a great forefinger as 
he watched the group of faces. 

"Well !" said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle,. when the 
reading was done, " you have settled it all to your own 
satisfaction, I have no doubt?" 

Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the 
murderer. He looked at everybody coldly and sarcas- 
tically. 

"Guilty, of course?" said he. "Out with it. 
Come!" 

'Sir," returned Mr. Wopsle, "without having the 
honour of your acquaintance, I do say Guilty." Upon 
vol. i. 9 



1 

I 
j 

130 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

this we all took courage to unite in a confirmatory 
murmur. 

"I know you do/ 5 said the stranger; "I knew you 
would. I told you so. But now I'll ask you a question. 
Do you know, or do you not know, that the law of Eng- 
land supposes every man to be innocent, until he is 
proved — proved — to be guilty?" 

" Sir/' Mr. Wopsle began to reply, "as an English- 
man myself, I " 

"Come!" said the stranger, biting his forefinger at 
him. " Don't evade the question. Either you know it, 
or you don't know it. Which is it to be?" 

He stood with his head on one side and himself on 
one side in a bullying interrogative manner, and he 
threw his forefinger at Mr. Wopsle — as it were to mark 
him out — before biting it again. 

"Now!" said he. "Do you know it, or don't you 
know it?" 

" Certainly I know it," replied Mr. Wopsle. 

" Certainly you know it. Then why didn't you say 
so at first? Now, I'll ask you another question; " taking 
possession of Mr. Wopsle as if he had a right to him. 
"Do you know that none of these witnesses have yet 
been cross-examined?" 

Mr. Wopsle was beginning, "I can only say " 

when the stranger stopped him. 

"What! You won't answer the question, yes or no? 
Now, I'll try you again." Throwing his finger at him 
again. " Attend to me. Are you aware, or are you not 
aware, that none of these witnesses have not been cross- 
examined? Come, I only want one word from you. 
Yes, or no?" 

Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive 
rather a poor opinion of him. 

" Come ! " said the stranger, " I'll help you. You don't 
deserve help, but I'll help you. Look at that paper you 
hold in yc?lir hand. What is it? " 

" What is it?" repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much 
at a loss. 

" Is it," pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and 
suspicious manner, "the printed paper you have just 
been reading from?" 

"Undoubtedly." 

" Undoubtedly. Now ? turn to that paper, and tell me 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 131 

whether it distinctly states that the prisoner expressly 
said that his legal advisers instructed him altogether to 
reserve his defence?" 

" I read that just now/' Mr. Wopsle pleaded. 

"Nevermind what you readjust now, sir; I don't 
ask you what you read just now. You may read the 
Lord's Prayer backwards, if you like — and, perhaps, 
have done it before to-day. Turn to the paper. No, 
no, no, my friend; not to the top of the column ; you 
know better than that ; to the bottom, to the bottom." 
(We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of subter- 
fuge. ) ' ' Well ? Have you found it ? " 

" Here it is," said Mr. Wopsle. 

"Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell 
me whether it distinctly states that the prisoner ex- 
pressly said that he was instructed by his legal advis- 
ers wholly to reserve his defence? Come! Do you 
make that of it?" 

Mr. Wopsle answered, "Those are not the exact 
words." 

" Not the exact words! " repeated the gentleman, bit- 
terly. "Is that the exact substance?' 

"Yes," said Mr. Wopsle. 

"Yes," repeated the stranger, looking round at the 
rest of the company with his right hand extended 
towards the witness, Wopsle. " And now I ask you what 
you say to the conscience of that man who, with that 

f>assage before his eyes, can lay his head upon his pil- 
ow after having pronounced a fellow-creature guilty, 
unheard?" 

We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the 
man we had thought him, and that he was beginning 
to be found out. 

" And that same man, remember," pursued the gen- 
tleman, throwing his finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily; 
that same man might be summoned as a juryman upon 
this very triqj, and having thus deeply committed him- 
self, might return to the bosom of his family and lay 
his head upon his pillow, after deliberately swearing 
that he would well and truly try the issue joined be- 
tween Our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at 
the bar, and would a true verdict give according to the 
evidence, so help him God ! " 
We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate 



132 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Wopsle had gone too far, and had better stop in his reck- 
less career while there was yet time. 

The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not 
to be disputed, and with a manner expressive of know- 
ing something secret about every one of us that would 
effectually do for each individual if he chose to disclose 
it, left the back of the settle, and came into the space 
between the two settles, in front of the fire, where he 
remained standing: his left hand in his pocket, and he 
biting the forefinger of his right. 

"From information I have received," said he, looking 
round at us as we all quailed before him, " I have reason 
to believe there is a blacksmith among you, by name 
Joseph — or— Joe — Gargery. "Which is the man?" 

"Here is the man," said Joe. 

The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, 
and Joe went. 

" You have an apprentice," pursued the stranger, 
" commonly known as Pip? Is he here?" 

" I am here! " I cried. 

The stranger did not recognise me, but I recognised 
him as the gentleman I had met on the stairs, on the 
occasion of my second visit to Miss Havisham. I had 
known him the moment I saw him looking over the set- 
tle, and now that I stood confronting him with his hand 
upon my shoulder, I checked off again in detail, his 
large head, his dark complexion, his deep-set eyes, his 
bushy black eyebrows, his large watch-chain, his strong 
black dots of beard and whisker, and even the smell of 
scented soap on his great hand. 

" I wish to have a private conference with you two," 
said he, when he had surveyed me at his leisure. " It 
will take a little time. Perhaps we had better go to 
your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my 
communication here ; you will impart as much or as lit- 
tle of it as you please to your friends afterwards ; I have 
nothing to do with that." • 

Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of 
the Jolly Bargemen, and in a wondering silence walked 
home. While going along, the strange gentleman 
occasionally looked at me, and occasionally bit the side 
of his finger. As we neared home, Joe vaguely acknowl- 
edging the occasion as an impressive and ceremo- 
nious one, went on ahead to open the front door. Our 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 133 

conference was held in the state parlour, which was 
feebly lighted by one candle. 

It began with the strange gentleman's sitting down 
at the table, drawing the candle to him, and looking 
over some entries in his pocket-book. He then put up 
the pocket-book and set the candle a little aside; after 
peering round it into the darkness at Joe and me, to 
ascertain which was which. 

" My name," he said, "is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer 
in London. I am pretty well known. I have unusual 
business to transact with you, and I commence by ex- 
plaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice 
had been asked, I should not have been here. It was 
not asked, and you see me here. What I have to do as 
the confidential agent of another/l do. No less, no 
more." 

Finding that he could not see us very well from 
where he sat, he got up, and threw one leg over the 
back of a chair and leaned upon it; thus having one 
foot on the seat of the chair, and one foot on the 
ground. 

"Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer 
to relieve you of this young fellow your apprentice. 
You would not object to cancel his indentures at his 
request and for his good ? You would not want any- 
thing for so doing?" 

" Lord forbid that I should want anything for not 
standing in Pip's way," said Joe, staring. 

" Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose," 
returned Mr. Jaggers. "The question is, Would you 
want anything? Do you want anything?" 

"The answer is," returned Joe, sternly, "No." 

I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he con- 
sidered him a fool for his disinterestedness. But I was 
too much bewildered between breathless curiosity and 
surprise, to be sure of it. 

"Very well," said Mr. Jaggers. "Recollect the ad- 
mission you have made, and don't try to go from it 
presently." 

" Who's a going to try ? " retorted Joe. 

"I don't say anybody is. Do you keep a dog ? 

"Yes, I do keep a dog." 

"Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but 
Holdfast is a better. Bear that in mind, will you ? " re- 



134 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

peated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes and nodding his 
head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. 
"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the com- 
munication I have got to make is, that he has Great 
Expectations." 

Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another. 

"I am instructed to communicate to him," said Mr. 
Jaggers, throwing his finger at me, sideways, "that he 
will come into a handsome property. Further, that it 
is the desire of the present possessor of that property, 
that he be immediately removed from his present 
sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up 
as a gentleman — in a word, as a young fellow of great 
expectations. " 

My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by 
sober reality; Miss Havisham was going to make my 
fortune on a grand scale. 

"Now, Mr. Pip," pursued the lawyer, "I address the 
rest of what I have to say, to you. You are to under- 
stand, first, that it is the request of the person from 
whom I take my instructions, that you always bear 
the name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare 
say, to your great expectations being encumbered 
with that easy condition. But if you have any ob- 
jection, this is the time to mention it." 

My heart was beating so fast, and there was such 
a singing in my ears, that I could scarcely stammer 
I had no objection. 

"I should think not! Now you are to understand, 
secondly, Mr. Pip, that the name of the person who 
is your liberal benefactor remains a profound secret, 
until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empow- 
ered to mention that it is the intention of the person 
to reveal it at first hand by word of mouth to your- 
self. When or where that intention may be carried 
out, I cannot say; no one can say. It may be years 
hence. Now, you are distinctly to understand that 
you are most positively prohibited from making any 
inquiry on this head, or any allusion or reference, how- 
ever distant, to any individual whomsoever as the in- 
dividual, in all the communications you may have with 
me. If you have a suspicion in your own breast, keep 
that suspicion in your own breast It is not the least 
to the purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are; 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 135 

they may be the strongest and gravest reasons, or they 
may be mere whim. This is not for you to inquire into. 
The condition is laid down. Your acceptance of it, 
and your observance of it as binding, is the only re- 
maining condition that I am charged with, by the per- 
son from whom I take my instructions, and for whom I 
am not otherwise responsible. That person is the per- 
son from whom you derive your expectations, and 
the secret is solely held by that person and by me. 
Again, not a very difficult condition with which to 
encumber such arise in fortune; but if you have any 
objection to it, this is the time to mention it. Speak 
out. 5 ' 

Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no 
objection. 

"I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done 
with stipulations." Though he called me Mr. Pip, and 
began rather to make up to me, he still could not get rid 
of a certain air of bullying suspicion ; and even now he 
occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me 
while he spoke, as much as to express that he knew all 
kinds of things to my disparagement, if he only chose 
to mention them. "We come next, to mere details of 
arrangement. You must know that although I use the 
term ' expectations ' mor^ than once, you are not en- 
dowed with expectations only. There is already lodged 
in my hands, a sum of money amply sufficient for your 
suitable education and maintenance. You will please 
consider me your guardian. Oh ! " for I was going to 
thank him, " I tell you at once, I am paid for my ser- 
vices, or I shouldn't render them. It is considered that 
you must be better educated, in accordance with your 
altered position, and that you will be alive to the impor- 
tance and necessity of at once entering on that ad- 
vantage." 

I said I had always longed for it. 

"Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. 
Pip," he retorted; "keep to the record. If you long for 
it now, that's enough. Am I answered that you are 
ready to be placed at once, under some proper tutor? 
Is that it?" 

I stammered, yes, that was it. 

"Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. 
I don't think that wise, mind, but it's my trust. Have 



136 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

you ever heard of any tutor whom you would prefer to 
another ? " 

I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy, 
and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt; so, I replied in the 
negative. 

" There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some 
knowledge, who I think might suit the purpose," said 
Mr. Jaggers. "I don't recommend him, observe; be- 
cause I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I 
speak is one Mr. Matthew Pocket. 

Ah ! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham's 
relation. The Matthew whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla 
had spoken of. The Matthew whose place was to be at 
Miss Havisham's head, when she lay dead, in her bride's 
dress on the bride's table. 

"You know the name ?" said Mr. Jaggers, looking 
shrewdly at me, and then shutting up his eyes while he 
waited for my answer. 

My answer was, that I had heard of the name. 

" Oh ! " said he. " You have heard of the name. But 
the question is, What do you say of it?" 

I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him 
for his recommendation 

" No, my young friend ! " he interrupted, shaking his 
great head very slowly! " Recollect yourself ! " 

Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was 
much obliged to him for his recommendation 

"No, my young friend," he interrupted, shaking his 
head and frowning and smiling both at once; " no, no, 
no; itV very well done, but it won't do; you are too 
young to fix me with it. Recommendation is not the 
word, Mr. Pip. Try another." 

Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to 
him for his mention of Mr. Matthew Pocket 

" That's more like it ! " cried Mr. Jaggers. 

— And (I added) I would gladly try that gentleman. 

"Good. You had better try him in his own house. 
The way shall be prepared for you, and you can see his 
son first, who is in London. When will you come to 
London?" 

I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motion- 
less), that I supposed I could come directly. 

"First," said Mr. Jaggers, "you should have some 
new clothes to come in, and they should not be working* 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 137 

clothes. Say this day week. You'll want some money. 
Shall I leave you twenty guineas ? " 

He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, 
and counted them out on the table and pushed them 
over to me. This was the first time he had taken 
his leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when 
he had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his 
purse and eyeing Joe. 

" Well, Joseph Gargery ? You look dumbfoundered ?" 

"I am !" said Joe, in a very decided manner. 

" It was understood that you wanted nothing for your- 
self, remember ? " 

" It were understood," said Joe. " And it are under- 
stood. And it ever will be similar according." 

" But what/' said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse, 
" what if it was in my instructions to make you a 
present, as compensation?" 

" As compensation what for?" Joe demanded. 

"For the loss of his services." 

Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of 
a woman. I have often thought him since, like the 
steam-hammer, that can crush a man or pat an eggshell, 
in his combination of strength with gentleness. "Pip 
is that hearty welcome," said Joe, "to go free with 
his services, to honour and f ortun', as no words can tell 
him. But if you think as money can make compensa- 
tion to me for the loss of the little child — what come to 
the forge — and ever the best of friends ! " 

O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and 
so unthankful to, I see you again, with your Auscular 
blacksmith's arm before your eyes, and your broad 
chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear 
good faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of 
your hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day as if it 
had been the rustle of an angel's wing! 

But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the 
mazes of my future fortunes, and could not retrace the 
by-paths we had trodden together. I begged Joe to be 
comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best of 
friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped 
his eyes with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent 
on gouging himself, but said not another word. 

Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recog- 
nised in Joe the village idiot, and in me his keeper. 







138 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

When it was over, he said, weighing in his hand the 
purse he had ceased to swing: 

" Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last 
chance. No half measures with me, If you mean to take 
a present that I have it in charge to make you, speak 
out, and you shall have it, If on the contrary you mean 

to say " Here, to his great amazement, he was 

stopped by Joe's suddenly working round him with 
every demonstration of a fell pugilistic purpose. 

"Which I meantersay," cried Joe, "that if you come 
into my place bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! 
Which I meantersay as sech if you're a man, come on! 
Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay and 
stand or fall by ! " 

I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; 
merely stating to me, in an obliging manner and as a 
polite expostulatory notice to any one whom it might 
happen to concern, that he were not a going to be bull- 
baited and badgered in his. own place. Mr. Jaggers had 
risen when Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the 
door. Without evincing any inclination to come in 
again, he there delivered his valedictory remarks. They 
were these: 

" Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here — 
as you are to be a gentleman — the better. Let it stand 
for this day week, and you shall receive my printed 
address in the mean time. You can take a hackney- 
coach at the stage coach-office in London, and come 
straight to me. Understand, that I express no opinion, 
one waj» or other, on the trust I undertake. I am paid 
for undertaking it, and I do so. Now, understand that 
finally. Understand that ! " 

He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think 
would have gone on, but for his seeming to think Joe 
dangerous, and going off. 

Something came into my head which induced me to 
run after him as he was going down to the Jolly Barge- 
men where he had left a hired carriage. 

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers." 

"Halloa! " said he, facing round, "what's the matter?" 

" I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to 
your directions; so I thought I had better ask. Would 
there be any objection to my taking leave of any one I 
know, about here, before I go away?" 









GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 139 



" No," said he, looking as if he hardly understood me. 

" I don't mean in the village only, but up town?" 

" No," said he. " No objection." 

I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found 
that Joe had already locked the front door and vacated 
the state parlour, and was seated by the kitchen fire 
with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at the burn- 
ing coals. I too sat down before the fire and gazed at 
the coals, and nothing was said for a long time. 

My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, 
and Biddy sat at her needlework before the fire, and 
Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next Joe in the corner 
opposite my sister. The more I looked into the glowing 
coals, the more incapable I became of looking at Joe; 
the longer the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to 
speak. 

At length I got out, " Joe, have you told Biddy?" 

"No, Pip," returned Joe, still looking at the fiire, and 
holding his knees tight, as if he had private informa- 
tion that they intended to make off somewhere, "which 
I left it to yourself, Pip." 

"I would rather you told, Joe.' 

" Pip's a gentleman of fortun' then," said Joe, "and 
God bless him in it! " 

Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held 
his knees and looked at me. I looked at both of them. 
After a pause, they both heartily congratulated me : 
but there was a certain touch of sadness in their con- 
gratulations, that I rather resented. 

I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through 
Biddy, Joe) with the grave obligation I considered my 
friends under, to know nothing and say nothing about 
the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in good 
time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to 
be said, save that I had come into great expectations 
from a mysterious patron. Biddy nodded her head 
thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again, 
and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still 
detaining his knees, said, "Ay, ay, FU be ekervally 
partickler, Pip; " and then they congratulated me again, 
and went on to express so much winder at the notion 
of my being a gentleman, that I didn't half like it. 

Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to 
my sister some idea of what had happened. To the best of 



140 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

my belief, those efforts entirely failed. She laughed 
and nodded her head a great many times, and even re- 
peated after Biddy, the words "Pip" and "Property." 
But I doubt if they had more meaning in them than an 
election cry, and I cannot suggest a darker picture of 
her state of mind. 

I never could have believed it without experience, 
but as Joe and Biddy became more at their cheerful 
ease again, I became quite gloomy. Dissatisfied with 
my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is possible 
that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dis- 
satisfied with myself. 

Anyhow, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my 
face upon my hand, looking into the fire, as those two 
talked about my going away, and about what they 
should do without me, and all that. And whenever I 
caught one of them looking at me, though never so 
pleasantly (and they often looked at me — particularly 
Biddy), I felt offended: as if they were expressing some 
mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did 
by word or sign. 

At those times I would get up and look out at the 
door; for our kichen door opened at once upon the 
night, and stood open on summer evenings to air the 
room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, 
I am afraid I took to be but poor and humble stars for 
glittering on the rustic objects among which I had 
passed my life. 

" Saturday night/' said I, when we sat at our supper of 
bread-and-cheese and beer. "Five more days, and 
then the day before the day! They'll soon go." 

"Yes, Pip," observed Joe, whose voice sounded 
hollow in his beer mug. "They'll soon go." 

"Soon, soon go," said Biddy. 

" I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down 
town on Monday, and order my new clothes, I shall tell 
the tailor that I'll come and put them on there, or that 
I'll have them sent to Mr. Plumblechook's. It would 
be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people 
here." 

"Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your 
new gen-teel figure too Pip." said Joe, industriously 
cutting his bread with his cheese on it, in the palm of 
his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper as if 




GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 141 

thought of the time when we used to compare slices. 
'So might Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might 
take it as a compliment. 

"That's just what I don't want, Joe. They would 
make such a business of it — such a coarse and common 
business — that I couldn't bear myself." 

"Ah, that indeed, Pip!" said Joe. "If you couldn't 
abear yourself " 

Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister's 
plate, " Have you thought about when you'll show 
yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your sister, and me? You 
will show yourself to us; won't you? " 

"Biddy," I returned with some resentment, "you are 
so exceedingly quick that it's difficult to keep up with 
you." 

(" She always were quick," observed Joe.) 

" If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you 
would have heard me say that I shall bring my clothes 
here in a bundle one evening — most likely on the even- 
ing before I go away." 

Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I 
soon exchanged an affectionate good night with her 
and Joe, and went up to bed. When I got into my 
little room, I sat down and took a long look at it, as 
a mean little room that I should soon be parted from 
and raised above, for ever. It was furnished with 
fresh young remembrances too, and even at the same 
moment I fell into much the same confused division 
of mind between it and the better rooms to which I 
was going, as I had been in so often between the forge 
and Miss Havisham's, and Biddy and Estella. 

The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof 
of my attic, and the room was warm. As I put the 
window open and stood looking out, I saw Joe come 
slowly forth at the dark door below, and take a turn or 
two in the air; and then I saw Biddy come, and bring 
him a pipe and light it for him. He never smoked so 
late, and it seemed to hint to me that he wanted com- 
forting, for some reason or other. 

He presently stood at the door immediately beneath 
me, smoking his pipe, and Biddy stood there too, quietly 
talking to him, and I knew that they talked of me, for 
I heard my name mentioned in an endearing tone by 
both of them more than once. I would not have listened 



142 GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 

for more, if I could have heard more: so, I drew away 
from the window, and sat down in my one chair by the 
bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this 
first night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest 
I had ever known. 

Looking towards the open window, I saw light 
wreaths from Joe's pipe floating there, and I fancied it 
was like a blessing from Joe — not obtruded on me or 
paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared to- 
gether. I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it 
was an uneasy bed now, and I never slept the old sound 
sleep in it any more. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MORNING made a considerable difference in my 
general prospect of Life, and brightened it so 
much that it scarcely seemed the same. "What lay 
heaviest on my mind, was, the consideration that six 
days intervened between me and the day of departure; 
for, I could not divest myself of a misgiving thafsome- 
thing might happen to London in the meanwhile, and 
that, when I got there, it might be either greatly de- 
teriorated or clean gone. 

Joe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant 
when I spoke of our approaching separation; but they 
only referred to it when I did. After breakfast, Joe 
brought out my indentures from the press in the best 
parlour, and we put them in the fire, and I felt that I 
was free. With all the novelty of my emancipation on 
me, I went to church with Joe, and thought, perhaps 
the clergyman wouldn't have read that about the rich 
man and the kingdom of Heaven, if he had known all. 

After our early dinner, I strolled out alone, proposing 
to finish off the marshes at once, and get them done 
with. As I passed the church, I felt (as I had felt dur- 
ing service in the morning) a sublime compassion 
for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, 
Sunday after Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie 
obscurely at last among the low green mounds. I prom- 
ised myself that I would do something for them one of 
these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 143 

a dinner of roast beef and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, 
and a gallon of condescension, upon everybody in the 
village. 

If I had often thought before, with something allied 
to shame, of my companionship with the fugitive whom 
I had once seen limping among those graves, what were 
my thoughts on this Sunday, when the place recalled 
the wretch, ragged and shivering, with his felon iron 
and badge! My comfort was, that it happened a long 
time ago, and that he had doubtless been transported a 
long way off, and that he was dead to me, and might be 
veritably dead into the bargain. 

No more low wet grounds, no more dykes and sluices, 
no more of these grazing cattle — though they seemed, 
in their dull manner, to wear a more respectful air now, 
and to face round, in order that they might stare as long 
as possible at the possessor of such great expectations — 
farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, 
henceforth I was for London and greatness: not for 
smith's work in general and for you! I made my exult- 
ant way to the old Battery, and, lying down there to 
consider the question whether Miss Havisham intended 
me for Estella, fell asleep. 

When I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe 
sitting beside me, smoking his pipe. He greeted me 
with a cheerful smile on my opening my eyes, and 
said: 

" As being the last time, Pip, I thought Fd f oiler." 

" And Joe, I am very glad you did so." 

" Thankee, Pip." 

"You may be sure, dear Joe," I went on, after we 
had shaken hands, "that I shall never forget you." 

" No, no, Pip ! " said Joe, in a comfortable tone, "I'm 
sure of that. Ay, ay, old chap ! Bless you, it were 
only necessary to get it well round in a man's mind, to 
be certain on it. But it took a bit of time to get it 
well round, the change come so uncommon plump; 
didn't it?" 

Somehow, I was not best pleased with Joe's being so 
mightily secure of me. I should have liked him to 
have betrayed emotion, or to have said, "It does 
you credit, Pip," or something of that sort. Therefore, 
I made no remark on Joe's first head; merely saying as 
to his second, that the tidings had indeed come sud- 



144 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

denly, but that I had always wanted to be a gentleman* 
and had often and often speculated on what I would 
da, if I were one. 

" Have you though ?" said Joe. " Astonishing ! " 

"It's a pity now, Joe/' said I, "that you did not 
get on a little more, when we had our lessons here; 
isn't it?" 

"Well, I don't know," returned Joe. " I'm so awful 
dull. I'm only master of my own trade. It were al- 
ways a pity as I was so awful dull; but it's no more of 
a pity now, than it was — this day twelvemonth — don't 
you see ? " 

What I had meant was, that when I came into my 
property and was able to do something for Joe, it would 
have been much more agreeable if he had been better 
qualified for a rise in station. He was so perfectly in- 
nocent of my meaning, however, that I thought I 
would mention it to Biddy in preference. 

So, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took 
Biddy into our little garden by the side of the lane, and 
after throwing out in a general way for the elevation 
of her spirits, that I should never forget her, said I 
had a favour to ask of her. 

"And it is, Biddy," said I, "that you will not omit 
any opportunity of helping Joe on, a little." 

"How helping him on ?" asked Biddy, with a steady 
sort of glance. 

" Well ! Joe is a dear good fellow — in fact, I think he 
is the dearest fellow that ever lived — but he is rather 
backward in some things. For instance, Biddy, in his 
learning and his manners." 

Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke^ and al- 
though she opened her eyes very wide when I had 
spoken, she did not look at me. 

"Oh, his manners! won't his manners do then?" 
asked Biddy, plucking a black currant leaf. 

" My dear Biddy, they do very well here " 

"Oh! they do very well here?" interrupted Biddy, 
looking closely at the leaf in her hand. 

"Hear me out — but if I were to remove Joe into a 
higher sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I 
fully come into my property, they would hardly do him 
justice." 

" And don't you think he knows that ?" asked Biddy. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 145 

It was such a very provoking question (for it had 
never in the most distant manner occurred to me), that 
I said snappishly, 

"Biddy, what do you mean?" 

Biddy having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her 
hands — and the smell of a black currant bush has ever 
since recalled to me that evening in the little garden 
by the side of the lane — said, "Have you never con- 
sidered that he may be proud ? " 

"Proud ?" I repeated, with disdainful emphasis. 

"Oh! there are many kinds of pride," said Biddy, 
looking full at me and shaking her head; " pride is not 
all of one kind " 

" Well. What are you stopping for ?" said I. 

"Not all of one kind," resumed Biddy. "He may be 
too proud to let any one take him out of a place that he 
is competent to fill, and fills well and with respect. To 
tell you the truth, I think he is: though it sounds bold 
in me to say so, for you must know him far better than 
I do." 

"Now, Biddy," said I, "I am very sorry to see this 
in you. I did not expect to see this in you. You are 
envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on 
account of my rise in fortune, and you can't help show- 
ing it." 

"If you have the heart to think so," returned Biddy, 
"say so. Say so over and over again, if you have the 
heart to think so." 

" If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy," 
said I, in a virtuous and superior tone; " don't put it off 
upon me. I am very sorry to see it, and it's a bad side 
of human nature. I did intend to ask you to use any 
little opportunities you might have after I was gone, of 
improving dear Joe. But after this, I ask you nothing. 
I am extremely sorry to see this in you, Biddy," 
I repeated. " It's a — it's a bad side of human 
nature." 

"Whether you scold me or approve of me," returned 
poor Biddy, " you may equally depend upon my trying 
to do all that lies in my power, here, at all times. And 
whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make no 
difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentle- 
man should not be unjust neither," said Biddy, turning 
away her head. 

vol. i. 10 



140 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of 
human nature (in which sentiment, waiving its applica- 
tion, I have since seen reason to think I was right), and 
I walked down the little path away from Biddy, and 
Biddy went into the house, and I went out at the gar- 
den gate and took a dejected stroll until supper-time; 
again feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this, 
the second night of my bright fortunes, should be as 
lonely and unsatisfactory as the first. 

But, morning once more brightened my view, and I 
extended my clemency to Biddy, and we dropped the 
subject. Putting on the best clothes I had, I went into 
town as early as I could hope to find the shops open, 
and presented myself before Mr. Trabb, the tailor : who 
was having his breakfast in the parlour behind his 
shop, and who did not think it worth his while to come 
out to me, but called me in to him. 

"Well," said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met 
kind of way. ' ' How are you, and what can I do for 
you ? " 

Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather 
beds, and was slipping butter in between the blankets, 
and covering it up. He was a prosperous old bachelor, 
and his open window looked into a prosperous little 
garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron 
safe let into the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I 
did not doubt that heaps of his prosperity were put 
away in it in bags. 

"Mr. Trabb," said I, "it's an unpleasant thing to 
have to mention, because it looks like boasting; but I 
have come into a handsome property." 

A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the but- 
ter in bed, got up from the bedside, and wiped his 
fingers on the table-cloth, exclaiming, " Lord bless my 
soul!" 

" I am going up to my guardian in London," said I, 
casually drawing some guineas out of my pocket and 
looking at them ; "and I want a fashionable suit of 
clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them," I added — 
otherwise I thought he might only pretend to make 
them, "with ready money." 

" My dear sir," said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent 
his body, opened his arms, and took the liberty of 
touching me on the outside of each elbow, " don't hurt 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. U7 

me by mentioning that. May I venture to congratulate 
you ? Would you do me the favour of stepping into the 
shop?" 

Mr. Trabb's boy was the most audacious boy in all 
that country-side. When I had entered he was sweep- 
ing the shop, and he had sweetened his labours by 
sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came 
out into the shop with Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the 
broom against all possible corners and obstacles, to ex- 
press (as I understood it) equality with any blacksmith, 
alive or dead. 

"Hold that noise/' said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest 
sternness, " or I'll knock your head off ! Do me the 
favour to be seated, sir. Now, this," said Mr. Trabb, 
taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a flow- 
ing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his 
hand under it to show the gloss, "is a very sweet arti- 
cle. I can recommend it for your purpose, sir, because 
it really is extra super. But you shall see some others. 
Give me Number Four, you!" (To the boy, and with a 
dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that 
miscreant's brushing me with it, or making some other 
sign of familiarity. ) 

Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy 
until he had deposited number four on the counter and 
was at a safe distance again. Then, he commanded 
him to bring number five, and number eight. " And 
let me have none of your tricks here," said Mr. Trabb, 
"or you shall repent it, you young scoundrel, the long- 
est day you have to live." 

Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort 
of deferential confidence recommended it to me as a 
light article for summer wear, an article much in vogue 
among the nobility, and gentry, an article that it would 
ever be an honour to him to reflect upon a distinguished 
fellow-townsman's (if he might claim me for a fellow- 
townsman) having worn. " Are you bringing numbers 
five and eight, you vagabond," said Mr. Trabb to the 
boy after that, " or shall I kick you out of the shop and 
bring them myself?" 

I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance 
of Mr. Trabb's judgment, and re-entered the parlour to 
be measured. For, although Mr. Trabb had my meas- 
ure already, and had previously been quite contented 



148 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

with it, he said apologetically that it "wouldn't do 
under existing circumstances, sir — wouldn't do at all." 
So, Mr. Trabb measured and calculated me, in the par- 
lour, as if I were an estate and he the finest species of 
surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that 
I felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate 
him for his pains. When he had at last done and had 
appointed to send the articles to Mr. Pumblechook's on 
the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand upon the 
parlour lock, ' • I know, sir, that London gentlemen can- 
not be expected to patronise local work, as a rule ; but 
if you would give me a turn now and then in the quality 
of a townsman, I should greatly esteem it. Good morn- 
ing, sir, much obliged. — Door!" 

The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the 
least notion what it meant. But I saw him collapse 
as his master rubbed me out with his hands, and my 
first decided experience of the stupendous power of 
money, was, that it had morally laid upon his back, 
Trabb's boy. 

After this memorable event, I went to the hatter's 
and the bootmaker's, and the hosier's, and felt rather 
like Mother Hubbard's dog whose outfit required the 
services of so many trades. I also went to the coach- 
office and took my place for seven o'clock on Saturday 
morning. It was not necessary to explain everywhere 
that I had come into a handsome property; but when- 
ever I said anything to that effect, it followed that the 
officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention 
diverted through the window by the High-street, and 
concentrated his mind upon me. When I had ordered 
everything I wanted, I directed my steps towards 
Pumblechook's, and, as I approached that gentleman's 
place of business, I saw him standing at his door. 

He was waiting for me with great impatience. He 
had been out early with the chaise-cart, and had called 
at the forge and heard the news. He had prepared a 
collation for me in the Barnwell parlour, and he too 
ordered his shopman to "come out of the gangway" as 
my sacred person passed. 

"My dear friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me 
by both hands, when he and I and the collation were 
alone, "I give you joy of your good fortune. Well 
deserved, well deserved ! " 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 149 

This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sen- 
sible way of expressing himself. 

" To think/' said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting 
admiration at me for some moments, "that I should 
have been the humble instrument of leading up to this, 
is a proud reward." 

I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing 
was to be ever said or hinted, on that point. 

"My dear young friend," said Mr. Pumblechook; "if 
you will allow me to call you so " 

I murmured "Certainly," and Mr. Pumblechook took 
me by both hands again, and communicated a move- 
ment to his waistcoat, which had an emotional appear- 
ance, though it was rather low down, "My dear young 
friend, rely upon my doing my little all in your absence, 
by keeping the fact before the mind of Joseph. — 
Joseph!" said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a com- 
passionate adjuration. "Joseph ! ! Joseph ! ! !" There- 
upon he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his 
sense of deficiency in Joseph. 

"But my dear young friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, 
"you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be 
seated. Here is a chicken had round from the Boar, 
here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here's one or 
two little things had round from the Boar, that I hope 
you may not despise. But do I," said Mr. Pumble- 
chook, getting up again the moment after he had 
sat down, "see afore me, him as I ever sported with 
in his times of happy infancy? And may I — may 
I 1 ? " 

This May I, meant might he shake hands ? I consent- 
ed, and he was fervent, and then sat down again. 

" Here is wine," said Mr. Pumblechook. "Let us 
drink, Thanks to Fortune, and may she ever pick out 
her favourites with equal judgment! And yet I cannot," 
said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, "see afore 
me One — and likewise drink to One — without again 
expressing — May I — may I ?" 

I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, 
and emptied his glass and turned it upside down. I did 
the same; and if I had turned myself upside down be- 
fore drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct 
to my head. 

Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to 



150 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

the best slice of tongue (none of those out-of-the-way 
No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and took, compara- 
tively speaking, no care of himself at all. "Ah! 
poultry, poultry! You little thought," said Mr. Pumble- 
chook, apostrophising the fowl in the dish, "when you 
was a young fledgling, what was in store for you. You 
little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this 
humble roof for one as — Call it a weakness, if you will," 
said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, " but may 
I ? may I " 

It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of say- 
ing he might, so he did it at once. How he ever did it 
so often without wounding himself with my knife, I 
don't know. 

"And your sister," he resumed, after a little steady 
eating, ' ' which had the honour of bringing you up by 
hand ! It's a sad picter, to reflect that she's no longer 
equal to fully understanding the honour. May " 

I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stop- 
ped him. 

" We'll drink yer health," said I. 

"Ah!" cried Mr. Pumplechook, leaning back in his 
chair, quite flaccid with admiration, "that's the way 
you know 'em, sir!" (I don't know who Sir was, but he 
certainly was not I, and there was no third person pres- 
ent); " that's the way you know the noble-minded, sir! 
Ever forgiving and ever affable. It might," said the 
servile Pumblechook, putting down his untasted glass 
in a hurry and getting up again, "to a common person, 
have the appearance of repeating — but may I ? ' 

When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank 
to my sister. "Let us never be blind," said Mr. Pum- 
blechook, "to her faults of temper, but it is to hoped she 
meant well." 

At about this time, I began to observe that he was 
getting flushed in the face; as to myself, I felt all face, 
steeped in wine, and smarting. 

I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to 
have my new clothes sent to his house, and he was 
ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I mentioned 
my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the vil- 
lage, and he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody 
but himself, he intimated, worthy of my confidence, 
and — in short, might he? Then he asked me tenderly 









GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 151 

if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how 
we had gone together to have me bound apprentice, 
and, in effect, how he had ever been my favourite fancy 
and chosen friend? If I had taken ten times as many 
glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he 
never had stood in that relation towards me, and should 
in my heart of hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet 
for all that, I remember feeling convinced that I had 
been much mistaken in him, and that he was a sen- 
sible practical good-hearted prime fellow. 

By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence 
in me, as to ask my advice in reference to his own af- 
fairs. He mentioned that there was an opportunity for 
a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and 
seed trade on those premises, if enlarged, such as had 
never occurred before in that, or any other neighbour- 
hood. What alone was wanting to the realisation of a 
vast fortune, he considered to be More Capital. Those 
were the two little words, more capital. Now it ap- 
peared to him (Pumblechook) that if that capital were 
got into the business, through a sleeping partner, sir — 
which sleeping partner would have nothing to do but 
walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and 
examine the books — and walk in twice a year and take 
his profits away in his pocket, to the tune of fifty per 
cent. — it appeared to him that that might be an open- 
ing for a young gentleman of spirit combined with prop- 
perty, which would be worthy of his attention. But 
what did I think? He had great confidence in my 
opinion, and what did I think ? I gave it as my opinion. 
"Wait a bit!" The united vastness and distinctness 
of this view so struck him, that he no longer asked if 
he might shake hands with me, but said he really must 
— and did. 

We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged 
himself over and over again to keep Joseph up to the 
mark (I don't know what mark), and to render efficient 
and constant service (I don't know what service). He 
also made known to me for the first time in my life, and 
certainly after having kept his secret wonderfully well, 
that he had always said of me, "That boy is no com- 
mon boy, and mark me, his fortun' will be no common 
fortun'." He said with a tearful smile that it was a sin- 
gular thing to think of now, and I said so too. Finally 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I went out into the air, with a dim perception that ther^ 
was something unwonted in the conduct of the sun- 
shine, and found that I had slumberously got to the 
turnpike without having taken any account of the 
road. 

There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook's hailing me. 
He was a long way down the sunny street, and was 
making expressive gestures for me to stop. I stopped, 
and he came up breathless. 

"No, my dear friend," said he, when he had recover- 
ed wind for speech. "Not if I can help it. This occasion 
shall not entirely pass without that affability on your 
part. — May I, as an old friend and well-wisher? May 
I?" 

We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and 
he ordered a young carter out of my way with the 
greatest indignation. Then, he blessed me and stood 
waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in 
the road; and then I turned into a field and had a long 
nap under a hedge before I pushed my way home. 

I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for 
little of the little I possessed was adapted to my new 
station. But, I began packing that same afternoon, 
and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want 
next morning, in a fiction that there was not a moment 
to be lost. 

So, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, passed; and 
on Friday morning I went to Mr. Pumblechook's, to 
put on my new clothes and pay my visit to Miss Havi- 
sham. Mr. Pumblechook's own room was given up to 
me to dress in, and was decorated with clean towels 
expressly for the event. My clothes were rather a dis- 
appointment, of course. Probably every new and 
eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes 
came in, fell a trifle short of the wearer's expectation. 
But after I had had my new suit on, some half an hour, 
and had gone through an immensity of posturing with 
Mr. Pumblechook's very limited dressing-glass, in the 
futile endeavour to see my legs, it seemed to fit me 
better. It being market morning at a neighbouring town 
some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook was not at home. 
I had not told him exactly when I meant to leave, and 
was not likely to shake hands with him again before 
departing. This was all as it should be, and I went out 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 153 

in my new array fearfully ashamed of having to pass 
the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a 
personal disadvantage, something like Joe's in his 
Sunday suit. 

I went circuitously to Miss Havisham' s by all the 
back ways, and rang at the bell constrainedly, on 
account of the stiff long fingers of my gloves. Sarah 
Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back 
when she saw me so changed; her walnut shell counte- 
nance likewise, turned from brown to green and yellow. 

" You? " said she. "You? Good gracious! What do 
you want?" 

" I am going to London, Miss Pocket," said I, "and 
want to say good-by to Miss Havisham." 

I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, 
while she went to ask if I were to be admitted. After 
a very short delay, she returned and took me up, 
staring at me all the way. 

Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with 
the long spread table, leaning on her crutch stick. The 
room was lighted as of yore, and at the sound of her 
entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then just 
abreast of the rotted bride-cake. 

"Don't go, Sarah," she said. "Well, Pip?" 

" I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow," I 
was exceedingly careful what I said, "and I thought 
you would kindly not mind my taking leave of you." 

"This is a gay figure, Pip," said she making her 
crutch stick play round me, as if she, the fairy god- 
mother who had changed me, were bestowing the 
finishing gift. 

" I have come into such good fortune since I saw you 
last, Miss Havisham," I murmured. "And I am so 
grateful for it, Miss Havisham! " 

" Ay, ay! " said she, looking at the discomfited and 
envious Sarah, with delight. " I have seen Mr. Jaggers. 
I have heard about it, Pip. So you go to-morrow ? " 

" Yes, Miss Havisham." 

" And you are adopted by a rich person? " 

" Yes, Miss Havisham." 

"Not named?" 

" No, Miss Havisham." 

" And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian? " 

"Yes, Miss Havisham," 



154 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so 
keen was her enjoyment of Sarah Pocket's jealous 
dismay, "Well!" she went on; "you have a promising 
career before you. Be good — deserve it — and abide by 
Mr. Jagger's instructions." She looked at me, and looked 
at Sarah, and Sarah's countenance wrung out of her 
watchful face a cruel smile. " Good-by, Pip! — you will 
always keep the name of Pip, you know." 

"Yes, Miss Havisham." 

"Good-by, Pip!" 

She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my 
knee and put it to my lips. I had not considered how I 
should take leave of her; it came naturally to me at the 
moment, to do this. She looked at Sarah Pocket with 
triumph in her weird eyes, and so I left my fairy god- 
mother, with both her hands on her crutch stick, stand- 
ing in the midst of the dimly lighted room beside the 
rotten bride-cake that was hidden in cobwebs. 

Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost 
who must be seen out. She could not get over my 
appearance, and was in the last degree confounded. I 
said "Good-by, Miss Pocket; " but she merely stared, 
and did not seem collected enough to know that I had 
spoken. Clear of the house, I made the best of my way 
back to Pumblechook's, took off my new clothes, made 
them into a bundle, and went back home in my older 
dress, carrying it — to speak the truth, — much more at 
my ease too, though I had the bundle to carry. 

And now, those six days which were to have run out 
so slowly, had run out fast and were gone, and to-morrow 
looked me in the face more steadily than I could look 
at it. As the six evenings had dwindled away, to five, 
to four, to three, to two, I had become more and more 
appreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. On this 
last evening, I dressed myself put in my new clothes, 
for their delight, and sat in my splendour until bedtime. 
We had a hot- supper on the occasion, graced by the 
inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish 
with. We were all very low, and none the higher for 
pretending to be in spirits. 

I was to leave our village at five in the morning, car- 
rying my little hand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe 
that I wished to walk away all alone. I am afraid — 
sore afraid — that this purpose originated in my sense of 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 155 

the contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we 
went to the coach together. I had pretended with my- 
self that there was nothing of this taint in the arrange- 
ment; but when I went up to my little room on this last 
night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be done 
so, and had an impulse upon me to go down again 
and entreat Joe to walk with me in the morning. I did 
not. 

All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, 
going to wrong places instead of to London, and having 
in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now pigs, now men 
— never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occu- 
pied me until the day dawned and the birds were sing- 
ing. Then, I got up and partly dressed, and sat at 
the window to take a last look out, and in taking it fell 
asleep. 

Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, 
although I did not sleep at the window an hour, I smelt 
the smoke of the kitchen fire when I started up with a 
terrible idea that it must be late in the afternoon. But 
long after that, and long after I heard the clinking of 
the teacups and was quite ready, I wanted the resolu- 
tion to go down stairs. After all, I remained up there, 
repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping my small port- 
manteau and locking and strapping it up again, until 
Biddy called to me that I was late. 

It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got 
up from the meal, saying with a sort of briskness, as if 
it had only just occurred to me, "Well! I suppose I 
must be off!" and then I kissed my sister who was 
laughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair, 
and kissed Biddy, and threw my arms around Joe's 
neck. Then I took up my little portmanteau and walked 
out. The last I saw of them, was, when I presently 
heard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw Joe 
throwing an old shoe after me and Biddy throwing an- 
other old shoe. I stopped then to wave my hat, and 
dear old Joe waved his strong right arm above his head, 
crying huskily "Hooroar!" and Biddy put her apron to 
her face. 

I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier 
to go than I had supposed it would be, and reflecting 
that it would never have done to have an old shoe 
thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High-street. 



166 GR^AT EXPECTATIONS, 

I whistled and made nothing of going. But the village 
was very peaceful and quiet, and the light mists were 
solemnly rising, as if to show me the world, and I had 
been so innocent and little there, and all beyond was so 
unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong 
heave and sob I broke into tears. It was by the finger- 
post at the end of the village, and I laid my hand upon 
it, and said, " Good-by O my dear, dear friend!" 

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, 
for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, over- 
lying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, 
than before — more sorry, more aware of my own in- 
gratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should 
have had Joe with me then. 

So subdued I was by those tears, and by their break- 
ing out again in the course of the quiet walk, that when 
I was on the coach, and it was clear out of the town, I 
deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not 
get down when we changed horses, and walk back, and 
have another evening at home, and a better parting. 
We changed, and I had not made up my mind, and still 
reflected for my comfort that it would be quite prac- 
ticable to get down and walk back, when we changed 
again. And while I was occupied with those delibera- 
tions, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe in 
some man coming along the road towards us, and my 
heart would beat high. As if he could possibly be 
there! 

We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too 
late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the 
mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay 
spread before me. 



THIS IS THE END OF THE FIRST STAGE OF PIP'S 
EXPECTATIONS. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 157 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE journey from our town to the metropolis was a 
journey of about five hours. It was a little past 
mid-day when the four-horse stage-coach by which I 
was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed 
out about the Cross-Keys, Wood-street, Cheapside, Lon- 
don. 

We Britons had at that time particularly settled that 
it was treasonable to doubt our having and our being 
the best of everything: otherwise, while I was scared 
by the immensity of London, I think I might have had 
some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, 
crooked, narrow, and dirty. 

Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address ; it was, 
Little Britain, and he had written after it on his card, 
"just out of Smithfield, and close by the coach-office." 
Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman, who seemed to have 
as many capes to his greasy great-coat as he was years 
old, packed me up in his coach and hemmed me in with 
a folding and jingling barrier of steps, as if he were 
going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his box, 
which I remember to have been decorated with an old, 
weather-stained, pea -green hammercloth, motheaten 
into rags, was quite a work of time. It was a wonder- 
ful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and rag- 
ged things behind for I don't know how many footmen 
to hold on by, and a harrow below them, to prevent 
amateur footmen from yielding to the temptation. 

I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to 
think how like a straw-yard it was, and yet how like a 
rag-shop, and to wonder why the horses' nose-bags were 
kept inside, when I observed the coachman beginning 
to get down, as if we were going to stop presently. 
And stop we presently did, in a gloomy street, at cer- 
tain offices with an open door, whereon was painted 
Mr. Jaggers. 



158 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" How much? " I asked the coachman. 

The coachman answered, " A shilling — unless you 
wish to make it more." 

I naturally said I had no wish to make it more. 

" Then it must be a shilling/' observed the coachman. 
" I don't want to get into trouble. I know him /" He 
darkly closed an eye at Mr. Jaggers's name, and shook 
his head. 

When he had got his shilling, and had in course of 
time completed the ascent to his box, and had got away 
(which appeared to relieve his mind) I went into the 
front office with my little portmanteau in my hand and 
asked, was Mr. Jaggers at home? 

" He is not," returned the clerk. " He is in Court at 
present. Am I addressing Mr. Pip?" 

I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip. 

"Mr. Jaggers left word would you wait in his room. 
He couldn't say how long he might be, having a case 
on. But it stands to reason, his time being valuable, 
that he won't be longer than he can help." 

With those words, the clerk opened a door, and 
ushered me into an inner chamber at the back. Here 
we found a gentleman with one eye, in a velveteen 
suit and knee-breeches, who wiped his nose with his 
sleeve on being interrupted in the perusal of the news- 
paper. 

" Go and wait outside, Mike," said the clerk. 

I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting — 
when the clerk shoved this gentleman out with as little 
ceremony as I ever saw used, and tossing his fur cap 
out after him, left me alone. 

Mr. Jaggers's room was lighted by a skylight only, and 
was a most dismal place; the skylight, eccentrically 

Eatched like a broken head, and the distorted adjoining 
ouses looking as if they had twisted themselves to 
peep down at me through it. There were not so many 
papers about as I should have expected to see; and 
there were some odd objects about that I should not 
have expected to see — such as an old rusty pistol, a 
sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and 
packages, and two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces 
peculiarly swollen and twitchy about the nose. Mr. 
Jaggers's own high-backed chair was of deadly black 
horsehair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 139 

coffin; and I fancied I could see how he leaned back in 
it, and bit his forefinger at the clients. The room was 
but small, and the clients seemed to have had a habit 
of backing up against the wall : the wall especially 
opposite to Mr. Jaggers's chair, being greasy with 
shoulders. I recalled, too, that the one-eyed gentleman 
had shuffled forth against the wall when I was the in- 
nocent cause of his being turned out. 

I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against 
Mr. Jaggers's chair, and became fascinated by the dis- 
mal atmosphere of the place. I called to mind that the 
clerk had the same air of knowing something to every- 
body else's disadvantge, as his master had. I wondered 
how many other clerks there were up-stairs, and 
whether they all claimed to have the same detrimental 
mastery of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what 
was the history of all the odd litter about the room, and 
how it came there. I wondered whether the two 
swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers's family, and, if he 
were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such ill- 
looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty 
perch for the blacks and flies to settle on, instead of 
giving them a place at home. Of course I had no ex- 
perience of a London summer day, and my spirits may 
have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by 
the dust and grit that lay thick on everything. But I 
sat wondering and waiting in Mr. Jaggers's close room, 
until I really could not bear the two casts on the shelf 
above Mr. Jaggers's chair, and got up and went out. 

When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the 
air while I waited, he advised me to go round the corner 
and I should come into Smithfield. So, I came into 
Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all a smear 
with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick 
to me. So, I rubbed it off with all possible speed by 
turning into a street where I saw the great black dome 
of St. Paul's bulging at me from behind a grim stone 
building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison. 
Following the wall of the jail, I found the roadway 
covered with straw to deaden the noise of passing 
vehicles; and from this, and from the quantity of people 
standing about, smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I 
inferred that the trials were on. 

While I looked about me here, an exceeding dirty 







160 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

and partially drunk minister of justice asked me if I 
would like to step in and hear a trial or so: informing 
me that he could give me a front place for half -a-crown, 
whence I should command a full view of the Lord Chief 
Justice in his wig and robes — mentioning that awful 
personage like waxwork, and presently offering him 
at the reduced price of eighteenpence. As I declined 
the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he .was so 
good as to take me into a yard and show me where the 
gallows were kept, and also where people were publicly 
whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors' Door, out 
of which culprits came to be hanged; heightening the 
interest of that dreadful portal by giving me to under- 
stand that "four on em" would come out at the door 
the day after to-morrow at eight in the morning, to be 
killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a sick- 
ening idea of London: the more so as the Lord Chief 
Justice's proprietor (wore from his hat down to his boots 
and up again to his pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mil- 
dewed clothes, which had evidently not belonged to 
him originally, and which, I took it into my head, he 
had bought cheap of the executioner. Under these 
circumstances I thought myself well rid of him for a 
shilling. 

I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had 
come in yet, and I found he had not, and I strolled out 
again. This time I made the tour of Little Britain, and 
turned into Bartholomew Close; and now I became 
aware that other people were waiting about for Mr. 
Jaggers as well as I. There were two men of secret 
appearance lounging in Bartholomew Close, and 
thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the 
pavement as they talked together, one of whom said to 
the other when they first passed me, that "Jaggers 
would do it if it was to be done." There was a knot of 
three men and two women standing at a corner, and 
one of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and 
the other comforted her by saying, as she pulled her 
own shawl over her shoulders, "Jaggers is for him, 
'Melia, and what more could you have?" There was a 
red-eyed little Jew who came into the Close while I 
was loitering there, in company with a second little 
Jew whom he sent upon an errand; and while the 
messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 161 

highly excitable temperament, performing a jig of anx- 
iety under a lamp-post, and accompanying himself, in 
a kind of frenzy, with the words, "Oh Jaggerth, Jag- 
gereth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give 
me Jaggerth! " These testimonies to the popularity of 
my guardian made a deep impression on me, and I 
admired and wondered more than ever. 

At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of 
Bartholomew Close into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jag- 
gers coming across the road towards me. All the 
others who were waiting saw him at the same time, and 
there was quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a 
hand on my shoulder and walking me on at his side 
without saying anything to me, addressed himself to 
his followers. 

First, he took the two secret men. 

"Now, I have nothing to say to you" said Mr. 
Jaggers, throwing his finger at them. I want to know 
no more than I know. As to the result, it's a toss-up. 
I told you from the first it was a toss-up. Have you 
paid Wemmick ? " 

" We made the money up this morning, sir/' said one 
of the men, submissively, while the other perused Mr. 
Jaggers's face. 

"I don't ask you when you made it up, or where, or 
whether you made it up at all. Has Wemmick got 
it?" 

" Yes, sir," said both the men together. 

"Very well; then you may go. Now, I won't have 
it ! " said Mr. Jaggers, waving his hand at them to put 
them behind him. "If you say a word to me, I'll 
throw up the case." 

" We thought, Mr. Jaggers " one of the men be- 
gan, pulling off his hat. 

u That's what I told you not to do," said Mr. Jaggers. 
" You thought! I think for you ; that's enough for you. 
If I want you, I know where to find you ; I don't 
want you to find me. Now I won't have it. I won't 
hear a word." 

The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers 
waved them behind again, and humbly fell back and 
were heard no more. 

/'And now you!" said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stop- 
ping, and turning on the two women with the shawls, 
vol. i. 11 



162 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

from whom the three men had meekly separated — " Oh! 
Amelia, is it ? " 

"Yes, Mr. Jaggers." 

"And do you remember," retorted Mr. Jaggers, 
"that but for me you wouldn't be here and couldn't be 
here?" 

"Oh yes, sir!" exclaimed both women together. 
" Lord bless you, sir, well we knows that ! " 

" Then why/' said Mr. Jaggers, " do you come here?" 

"My Bill, sir," the crying woman pleaded. 

"Now, I tell you what!" said Mr. Jaggers. "Once 
for all. If you don't know that your Bill's in good 
hands, I know it. And if you come here bothering 
about your Bill, I'll make an example of both your Bill 
and you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you 
paid Wemmick ? " 

" Oh yes, sir ! Every farden." 

"Very well. Then you have done all you have got 
to do. Say another word — one single word — and Wem- 
mick shall give you your money back." 

This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off 
immediately. No one remained now but the excitable 
Jew, who had already raised the skirts of Mr. Jaggers's 
coat to his lips several times. 

"I don't know this man! "said Mr. Jaggers in the 
same devastating strain. " What does this fellow 
want?" 

" Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to 
Habraham Latharuth ! " 

"Who's he?" said Mr. Jaggers. "Let go of my 
coat." 

The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again be- 
fore relinquishing it, replied, "Habraham Latharuth, 
on thuthpithion of plate." 

"You're too late," said Mr. Jaggers, "I am over the 
way." 

"Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!" cried my excit- 
able acquaintance, turning white, " don't thay you're 
a.gain Habraham Latharuth!" 

" I am," said Mr. Jaggers, " and there's an end of it. 
Get out of the way." 

"Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown 
cuthen'th gone to Mr. Wemmick at thith prethenth 
minute, to hoffer him hany termth. Mithter Jaggerth! 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 163 

Half a quarter of a moment ! If you'd have the 
condethenthun to be bought off from the t'other thide 
—at any thuperior prithe ! — money no object ! — Mithter 
J aggerth— Mithter 1 " 

My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme 
indifference, and left him dancing on the pavement as 
if it were red hot. Without further interruption, we 
reached the front office, where we found the clerk and 
the man in velveteen with the fur cap. 

"Here's Mike/' said the clerk, getting down from his 
stool, and approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially. 

"Oh!" said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the ma*i who 
was pulling a lock of hair in the middle of his forehead, 
like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling at the bell-rope ; 
" your man comes on this afternoon. Well?" 

"Well, Mas'r Jaggers," returned Mike, in the voice 
of a sufferer from a constitutional cold ; ' ' arter a deal 
o' trouble I've found one, sir, as might do." 

" What is he prepared to swear?" 

" Well, Mas'r Jaggers," said Mike, wiping his nose 
on his fur cap this time; "in a general way, any- 
thing" 

Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. "Now, I 
warned you before," said he, throwing his forefinger at 
the terrified client, "that if ever you presumed to talk 
in that way here, I'd make an example of you. You 
infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell me that?" 

The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he 
were unconscious what he had done. 

"Spooney!" said the clerk, in a low voice, giving 
him a stir with his elbow. " Soft Head ! Need you say 
it face to face ? " 

"Now, I ask you, you blundering booby," said my 
guardian, very sternly, "once more and for the last 
time, what the man you have brought here is prepared 
to swear?" 

Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were try- 
ing to learn a lesson from his face, and slowly replied, 
" Ayther to character, or to having been in his company 
and never left him all the night in question." 

"Now, be careful. In what station of life is this 
man ? " 

Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and 
looked at the ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even 







164 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



looked at me, before beginning to reply in a nervous 

manner, "We've dressed him up like " when my 

guardian blustered out : 

" What? You will, will you? " 

("Spooney!" added the clerk again, with another 
stir.) 

After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened 
and begata again : 

" He is dressed like a 'spectable pieman. A sort of a 
pastry-cook." 

" Is he here ?" asked my guardian. 

" I left him," said Mike, " a setting on some doorsteps 
round the corner." 

" Take him past that window, and let me see him." 

The window indicated, was the office window. We 
all three went to it, behind the wire blind, and presently 
saw the client go by in an accidental manner, with >& 
murderous looking tall individual, in a short suit of 
white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner 
was not by any means sober, and had a black eye in the 
green stage of recovery, which was painted over. 

" Tell him to take his witness away directly," said my 
guardian to the clerk, in extreme disgust, "and ask 
him what he means by bringing such a fellow as 
that." 

My guardian then took me into his own room, and 
while he lunched, standing, from a sandwich-box and 
a pocket-flask of sherry (he seemed to bully his very 
sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements 
he had made for me. I was to go to " Barnard's Inn," 
to young Mr. Pocket's rooms, where a bed had been 
sent in for my accommodation ; I was to remain with 
young Mr. Pocket until Monday ; on Monday I was to 
go with him to his father's house on a visit, that I might 
try how I liked it. Also, I was told what my allow- 
ance was to be — it was a very liberal one — and had 
handed to me from one of my guardian's drawers, the 
cards of certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal 
for all kinds of clothes, and such other things as I could 
in reason want. "You will find your credit good, Mr. 
Pip," said my guardian, whose flask of sherrv smelt 
like a whole cask-full, as he hastily refreshed himself, 
"but I shall by this means be able to check your bills, 
and to pull you up if I find you outrunning the constable. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS 165 

Of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's no fault 
of mine." 

After I had pondered a little over this encouraging 
sentiment, I asked Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a 
coach ? He said it was not worth while, I was so near 
my destination; Wemmick should walk round with me, 
if I pleased. 

I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next 
room. Another clerk was rung down from up-stairs to 
take his place while he was out, and I accompanied him 
into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian. 
We found a new set of people lingering outside, but 
Wemmick made a way among them by saying coolly 
yet decisively, "I tell you it's no use ; he won't have a 
word to say to one of you;" and we soon got clear of 
them, and went on side by side. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



CASTING my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went 
along, to see what he was like in the light of day, 
I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, 
with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed 
to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged 
chisel. There were some marks in it that might have 
been dimples, if the material had been softer and the 
instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. 
The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at 
embellishment over his nose, but had given them up 
without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him to 
be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, 
and he appeared to have sustained a good many 
bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning rings, 
besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping 
willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that 
several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if 
he were quite laden with remembrances of departed 
friends. He had glittering eyes — small, keen, and 
black — and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, 
to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years. 

"So you were never in London before? "said Mr. 
Wemmick to me. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

■'Mb,? saidl. 

"J was new here once/' said Mr. Wemmick. " Rum 
to think of now! " 

" You are well acquainted with it now ?" 

" Why, yes/' said Mr. Wemmick. " I know the moves 
of it." 

" Is it a very wicked place?" I asked, more for the 
sake of saying something than for information. 

" You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered, in 
London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, 
who'll do that for you." 

" If there is bad blood between you and them," said I, 
to soften it off a little. 

"Oh! 1 don't know about bad blood," returned Mr. 
Wemmick. " There's not much bad blood about. 
They'll do it, if there's anything to be got by it." 

" That makes it worse." 

"You think so?" returned Mr. Wemmick. "Much 
about the same, I should say." 

He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked 
straight before him: walking in a self-contained way as 
if there were nothing in the streets to claim his atten- 
tion. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth that 
he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had 
got to the top of Holborn Hill before I knew that it was 
merely a mechanical appearance, and that he was not 
smiling at all. 

" Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives ?" I 
asked Mr. Wemmick. 

"Yes," said he, nodding in the direction. "At Ham- 
mersmith, west of London." 

"Is that far?" 

"Well! Say five miles." 

" Do you know him ?" 

"Why, you are a regular cross-examiner!" said Mr. 
Wemmick, looking at me with an approving air. " Yes, 
I know him. I know him! " 

There was an air of toleration or depreciation about 
his utterance of these words, that rather depressed me; 
and I was still looking sideways at his block of a face 
in search of any encouraging note to the text, when he 
said here we were at Barnard's Inn. My depression 
was not alleviated by the announcement, for, I had 
supposed that establishment to be an hotel kept by Mr. 



i 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 167 

Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town was a 
mere public-house. Whereas I now found Barnard to 
be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the 
dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed 
together in a rank corner as a club for Tom-cats. 

We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and 
were disgorged by an introductory passage into a melan- 
choly little square that looked to me like a flat burying- 
ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, 
and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal 
cats, and the most dismal houses (in number half a 
dosen or so), that I had ever seen. I thought the 
windows of the sets of chambers into which those houses 
were divided, were in every stage of dilapidated blind 
and curtain, crippled flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty 
decay, and miserable makeshift; while To Let To Let 
To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new 
wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul 
of Barnard were being slowly appeased by the gradual 
suicide of the present occupants and their unholy inter- 
ment under the gravel. A f rouzy mourning of soot and 
smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it 
had strewed ashes on its head, and was undergoing 
penance and humiliation as a mere dust-hole. Thus far 
my sense of sight; while dry rot and wet r5t and all the 
silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar — rot of 
rat and mouse and bug and coaching-stables near at 
hand besides — addressed themselves faintly to my sense 
of smell, and moaned, "Try Barnard's Mixture." 

So imperfect was this realization of the first of my 
great expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr. 
Wemmick. "Ah! " said he, mistaking me; " the retire- 
ment reminds you of the country. So it does me." 

He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight 
of stairs — which appeared to me to be slowly collapsing 
into sawdust, so that one of those days the upper lodgers 
would look out at their doors and find themselves with- 
out the means of coming down — to a set of chambers on 
the top floor. Mr. Pocket, Jun., was painted on the 
door, and there was a label on the letter-box, " Eeturn 
shortly." 

" He hardly thought you'd come so soon," Mr. Wem- 
mick explained. " You don't want me any more? " 

"No, thank you," said I. 









168 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"As I keep the cash/' Mr. Wemmick observed, "we 
shall most likely meet pretty often. Good day." 

"Good day." 

I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked 
at it as if he thought I wanted something. Then he 
looked at me, and said, correcting himself. 

"To be sure! Yes. You're in the habit of shaking 
hands?" 

I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the 
London fashion, but said yes. 

"I have got so out of it!" said Mr. Wemmick 
" except at last. Very glad, I'm sure, to make your 
acquaintance. Good day!" 

When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I 
opened the staircase window and had nearly beheaded 
myself, for, the lines had rotted away, and it came 
down like the guillotine. Happily it was so quick that 
I had not put my head out. After this escape, I was 
content to take a foggy view of the Inn through the * 
window's encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully look- 
ing out, saying to myself that London was decidedly 
overrated. 

Mr. Pocket, Junior's, idea of Shortly was not mine, 
for I had nearly maddened myself with looking out for 
half an hou/, and had written my name with my finger 
several times in the dirt of every pane in the window, 
before I heard footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there 
arose before me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, 
trousers, boots, of a member of society of about my own 
standing. He had a paper-bag under each arm and a 

Eottle of strawberries in one hand, and was out of 
reath. 

"Mr. Pip?" said he. 

"Mr. Pocket?" said I. 

"Dear me!" he exclaimed.. "I am extremely sorry; 
but I knew there was a coach from your part of the 
country at midday, and I thought you would come by 
that one. The fact is, I have been out on your account 
— not that that is any excuse — for I thought, coming 
from the country, you might like a little fruit after din- 
ner, and I went to Co vent Garden Market to get it good. 

For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would 
start out of my head. I acknowledged his attention in- 
coherently, and began to think this was a dream. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 169 

" Dear me!" said Mr. Pocket, Junior. "This door 
sticks so! " 

As lie was fast making jam of his JEruit by wrestling 
with the door while the paper-bags were under his 
arms, I begged him to allow me to hold them. He re- 
linquished them with an agreeable smile, and combated 
with the door as if it were a wild beast, It yielded so 
suddenly at last, that he staggered back upon me, and 
I staggered back upon the opposite door, and we both 
laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start out of 
my head, and as if this must be a dream. 

"Pray come in," said Mr. Pocket, Junior. "Allow 
me to lead the way. I am rather bare here, but I hope 
you'll be able to make out tolerably well till Monday. 
My father thought you would get on more agreeably 
through to-morrow with me than with him, and might 
like to take a walk about London. I am sure I shall be 
very happy to show London to you. As to our table, 
you won't find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied 
from our coffee-house here, and (it is only right I should 
add) at your expense, such being Mr. Jaggers's direc- 
tions. As to our lodging, it's not by any means splendid, 
because I have my own bread to earn, and my father 
hasn't anything to give me, and I shouldn't be willing 
to take it, if he had. This is our sitting-room — just 
such chairs and tables and carpet and so forth, you see, 
as they could spare from home. You mustn't give me 
credit for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, because 
they come for you from the coffee-house. This is my 
little bedroom; rather musty, but Barnard's is musty. 
This is your bedroom; the furniture's hired for the occa- 
sion, but I trust it will answer the purpose; if you should 
want anything, I'll go and fetch it. The chambers are 
retired, and we shall be alone together, but we shan't 
fight, I dare say. But, dear me, I beg your pardon, 
you're holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take 
these bags from you. I am quite ashamed." 

As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering 
him the bags, One, Two, I saw the starting appearance 
come into his own eyes that I knew to be in mine, and 
he said, falling back: 

' Lord bless me, you're the prowling boy! " 
And you," said I, " are the pale young gentleman ! " 



a 



170 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

9 

THE pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating 
one another in Barnard's Inn, until we both burst 
out laughing. "The idea of its being you !" said he. 
" The idea of its being you !" said I. And then we con- 
templated one another afresh, and laughed again. 
" Well ! " said the pale young gentleman, reaching out 
his hand good-humouredly, "it's all over now, I hope, and 
it will be magnanimous in you if you'll forgive me for 
having knocked you about so." 

I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket 
(for Herbert was the pale young gentleman's name) still 
rather confounded his intention with his execution. 
But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly. 

" You hadn't come into your good fortune at that 
time?" said Herbert Pocket. 

"No," said I. 

"No," he acquiesced: "I heard it happened very 
lately. I was rather on the look-out for good fortune 
then." 

"Indeed?" 

" Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she 
could take a fancy to me. But she couldn't— at all 
events, she didn't." 

I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to 
hear that. 

"Bad taste," said Herbert, xaughing, "but a fact. 
Yes, she had sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had 
come out of it successfully, I suppose I should have been 
provided for ; perhaps I should have been what-you- 
may-called it to Estella." 

" What's that?" I asked, with sudden gravity. 

He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, 
which divided his attention, and was the cause of his 
having made this lapse of a word. "Affianced," he 
explained, still busy with the fruit. " Betrothed. En- 
gaged. What's-his-named. Any word of that sort." 

"How did you bear your disappointment?" I asked. 

" Pooh! " said he " I didn't care much for it. She's a 
Tartar." 

"Miss Havisham?" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 171 

" I don't say no to that, but I meant Estella. That 
girl's hard and haughty and capricious to the last de- 
gree, and h^s been brought up by Miss Havisham to 
wreak reverse on all the male sex." 

" What relation is she to Miss Havisham? " 

" None/" said he. " Only adopted." 

" Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? 
What revenge?" 

" Lord, Mr. Pip! " said he. " Don't you know? " 

" No," said I. 

" Dear me ! It's quite a story, and shall be saved till 
dinner-time. And now let me take the liberty of ask- 
ing you a question. How did you come there that day? " 

I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, 
and then burst out laughing again, and asked me if I 
was sore afterwards? I didn't ask him if he was, for 
my conviction on that point was perfectly established. 

"Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?" he 
went on. 

"Yes." 

"You know he is Miss Havisham's man of business 
and solicitor, and has her confidence when nobody else 
has?" 

This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous 
ground. I answered with a constraint I made no at- 
tempt to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers in Miss 
Havisham's house on the very day of our combat, but 
never at any other time, and that I believed he had no 
recollection of having ever seen me there. 

" He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your 
tutor, and he called on my father to propose it. Of 
course he knew about my father from his connexion 
with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham's 
cousin; not that that implies familiar intercourse be- 
tween them, for he is a bad courtier and will not 
propitiate her." 

Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him 
that was very taking. I had never seen any one then, 
and I have never seen any one since, who more strongly 
expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural in- 
capacity to do anything secret and mean. There was 
something wonderfully hopeful about his general air, 
and something that at the same time whispered to me 
he would never be very successful or rich. I don't know 



172 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

how this was. I became imbued with the notion on 
that first occasion before we sat down to dinner, but I 
cannot define by what means. ^ 

He was still a pale young gentleman, and had a cer- 
tain conquered languor about him in the midst of his 
spirits and briskness, that did not seem indicative of 
natural strength. He had not a handsome face, but it 
was better than handsome : being extremely amiable 
and cheerful. His figure was a little ungainly, as in 
the days when my knuckles had taken such liberties 
with it, but it looked as if it would always be light and 
young. Whether Mr. Trabb's local work would have 
sat more gracefully on him than on me, may be a ques- 
tion ; but I am conscious that he carried off his rather 
old clothes, much better than I carried off my new suit. 

As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on 
my part would be a bad return unsuited to our years. 
I therefore told him my small story, an(J laid stress on 
my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was. 
I further mentioned that as I had been brought up a 
blacksmith in a country ^place, and knew very little of 
the ways of politeness, I would take it as a great kind- 
ness in him if he would give me a hint whenever he saw 
me at a loss or going wrong. 

" With pleasure," said he, " though I venture to proph- 
esy that you'll want very few hints. I dare say we 
shall be often together, and I should like to banish any 
needless restraint between us. Will you do me the 
favour to begin at once to call me by my christian name. 
Herbert?" 

I thanked him, and said I would. I informed him in 
exchange that my christian name was Philip. 

"I don't take to Philip," said he, smiling, "for it 
sounds like a moral boy out of the spelling-book, who 
was so lazy that he fell into a pond, or so fat that he 
couldn't see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that he 
locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined 
to go a birds'-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears 
who lived handy in the neighbourhood. *L tell you what 
I should like. We are so harmonious, and you have 
been a blacksmith — would you mind it?" 

"I shouldn't mind anything that you propose," I 
answered, "but I don't understand you." 

"Would vou mind Handel for a familiar name? 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 173 

There's a charming piece of music by Handel, called 
the Harmonious Blacksmith. " 

" I should like it very much." 

"Then, my dear Handel/' said he, turning round as 
the door opened, "here is the dinner, and I must beg 
of you to take the top of the table, because the din- 
ner is of your providing." 

This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I 
faced him. It was a nice little dinner — seemed to me 
then, a very Lord Mayor's Feast — and it acquired addi- 
tional relish from being eaten under those independent 
circumstances, with no old people by, and with London 
all around us. This again was heightened by a certain 
gipsy character that set the banquet off : for, while the 
table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have said, the 
lap of luxury — being entirely furnished forth from the 
coffee-house — the circumjacent region of sitting-room 
was of a comparatively pastureless and shifty character: 
imposing on the waiter the wandering habits of putting 
the covers on the floor (where he fell over them), the 
melted butter in the arm-chair, the bread on the book- 
shelves, the cheese in the coalscuttle, and the boiled 
fowl into my bed in the next room — where I found 
much of its parsley and butter in a state of congelation 
when I retired for the night. All this made the feast 
delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch 
me, my pleasure was without alloy. 

We had made some progress in the dinner, when I 
reminded Herbert of his promise to tell me about Miss 
Havisham. 

" True," he replied. 'Til redeem it at once. Let me 
introduce the topic, Handel, by mentioning that in 
London it is not the custom to put the knife in the 
mouth — for fear of accidents — and that while the fork 
is reserved for that use, it is not put further in than 
necessary. It is scarcely worth mentioning, only it's 
as well to do as other people do. Also, the spoon is not 
generally used over-hand, but under. This has two 
advantages. You get at your mouth better (which 
after all is the object), and you save a good deal of the 
attitude of opening oysters, on the part of the right 
elbow." 

He offered these friendly suggestion's in such a lively 
way, that we both laughed and I scarcely blushed. 



174 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" Now/' he pursued, "concerning Miss Havisham. 
Miss Havisham, you must know, was a spoilt child. 
Her mother died when she was a baby, and her father 
denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentle- 
man down in your part of the world, and was a brewer. 
^1 don't know why it should be a crack thing to be a 
^brewer; but it is indisputable that while you cannot pos- 
* sibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as 
never was and brew. You see it every day." 

"Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may 
he?" said I. 

"Not on any account," returned Herbert; "but a 
public-house may keep a gentleman. Well! Mr. Havi- 
sham was very rich and very proud. So was his 
daughter." 

" Miss Havisham was an only child ?" I hazarded. 

" Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was 
not an only child; she had a half-brother. Her father 
privately married again — his cook, I rather think." 

"I thought he was proud," said I. 

" My good Handel, so he was. He married his second 
wife privately, because he was proud, and in course of 
time she died. When she was dead, I apprehend he first 
told his daughter what he had done, and then the son 
became a part of the family, residing in the house you 
are acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he 
turned out riotous, extravagant, undutiful — altogether 
bad. At last his father disinherited him; but he softened 
when he was dying, and left him well off, though not 
nearly so well off as Miss Havisham. — Take another 
glass of wine, and excuse my mentioning that society 
as a body does not expect one to be so strictly conscien- 
tious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it bottom up- 
wards with the rim on one's nose." 

I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his 
recital. I thanked him, and apologised. He said, "Not 
at all," and resumed. 

"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may 
suppose was looked after as a great match. Her half- 
brother had now ample means again, but what with 
debts and what with new madness wasted them most 
fearfully again. There were stronger differences be- 
tween him and her, than there had been between him 
and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 175 

deep and mortal grudge against her as having influenced 
the father's anger. Now, I come to the cruel part of the 
story — merely breaking off, my dear Handel, to remark 
that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler." 

Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I 
am wholly unable to say. I only know that I found 
myself, with a perseverance worthy of a much better 
cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress 
it within those limits. Again I thanked him and apol- 
ogised, and again he said in the cheerfullest manner, 
"Not at all, I am sure!" and resumed. 

" There appeared upon the scene— say at the races, or 
the public balls, or anywhere else you like — a certain 
man, who made love to Miss Havisham. I never saw 
him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago before 
you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father 
mention that he was a showy-man, and the kind of man 
for the purpose. But that he was not to be, without 
ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my 
father most strongly asseverates; because it is a prin- 
ciple of his that no man who was not a true gentleman 
at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentle- 
man in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain 
of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the 
more the grain will express itself. Well! This man pur- 
sued Miss Havisham closely, and professed to be de- 
voted to her. I believe she had not shown much sus- 
ceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she 
possessed, certainly came out then, and she passionately 
loved him. There is no doubt that she perfectly idolized 
him. He practised on her affection in that systematic 
way, that he got great sums of money from her, and he 
induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brew- 
ery (which had been weakly left him by his father) at 
an immense price, on the plea that when he was her 
husband he must hold and manage it all. Your guar- 
dian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's councils, 
and she was too haughty and too much in love, to be 
advised by any one. Her relations were poor and schem- 
ing, with the exception of my father; he was poor 
enough, but not time-serving or jealous. The only in- 
dependent one among them, he warned her that she was 
doing too much for this man, and was placing herself 
too unreservedly in his power. She took the first op- 



176 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

portunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, 
in his presence, and my father has never seen her 
since." 

I thought of her having said, " Matthew will come and 
see me at last when I am laid dead upon that table;" 
and I asked Herbert whether his father was so inveter- 
ate against her ? • 

" It's not that," said he, " but she charged him, in the 
presence of her intended husband, with being disap- 
pointed in the hope of fawning upon her for his own 
advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would 
look true — even to him — and even to her. To return to 
the man and make an end of him. The marriage day 
was fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the wed- 
ding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were in- 
vited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. .He wrote 
her a letter— — " 

" Which she received," I struck in, " when she was 
dressing for her marriage? At twenty minutes to 
nine ?" 

" At the hour and minute," said Herbert, nodding "at 
which she afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was 
in it, further than that it most heartlessly broke the 
marriage off, I can't tell you, because I don't know. 
When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she 
laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she 
has never since looked upon the light of day." 

" Is that all the story ?" I asked, after considering it. 

"All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, 
through piecing it out for myself; for my father always 
avoids it, and, even when Miss Havisham invited me to 
go there, told me no more of it than it was absolutely 
requisite I should understand. But I have forgotten 
one thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom 
she gave her misplaced confidence, acted throughout in 
concert with her half-brother; that it was a conspiracy 
between them; and that they shared the profits." 

"I wonder he didn't marry her and get all the prop- 
erty," said I. 

" He may have been married already, and her cruel 
mortification may have been a part of her half-brother's 
scheme," said Herbert. "Mind! I don't know that." 

"What became of the ttro men?" I asked, after 
again considering the subject 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 177 

"They fell into deeper shame and degradation — if 
there can be deeper— and ruin." 

" Are they alive now ? " 

"I don't know." 

"You said just now that Estella was not related to 
Miss Havisham, but adopted. When adopted ? " 

Herbert shrugged his shoulders. " There has always 
been an Estella, since I have heard of a Miss Havisham. 
I know no more. And now Handel," said he, finally 
throwing off the story as it were, "there is a perfectly 
open understanding between us. All I know about Miss 
Havisham, you know." 

"And all I know," I retorted " you know." 

"I fully believe it. So there can be no competition 
or perplexity between you and me. And as to the con- 
dition on which you hold your advancement in life— 
namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to whom 
you owe it — you may be very sure that it will never be 
encroached upon, or even approached, by me, or by any 
one belonging to me." 

In truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I 
felt the subject done with, even though I should be un- 
der his father's roof for years and years to come. Yet 
he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt he as 
perfectly understood Miss Havisham to be my benefac- 
tress, as I understood the fact myself. 

It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up 
to the theme for the purpose of clearing it out of our 
way; but we were so much the lighter and easier for 
having broached it, and I now perceived this to be the 
case. We were very gay and sociable, and I asked him, 
in the course of conversation, what he was? He replied, 
"A capitalist — an Insurer of Ships." I suppose he saw 
me glancing about the room in search of some tokens of 
Shipping, or capital, for he added. " In the City." 

I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of 
Insurers of Ships in the City, and I began to think with 
awe, of having laid a young Insurer on his back, black- 
ened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible head 
open. But, again, there came upon me, for my relief, 
that odd impression that Herbert Pocket would never 
be very successful or rich. 

"I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my 
capital in insuring ships. I shall buy up some good 
vol. i. 13 









178 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Life Assurance shares, and cut into the Direction, I 
shall also do a little in the mining way. None of these 
things will interfere with my chartering a few thousand 
tons on my own account. I think I shall trade," 
said he, leaning back in his chair, "to the East Indies, 
for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious 
woods. It's an interesting trade." 

" And the profits are large ? " said I. 

"Tremendous !" said he. 

I wavered again, and began to think here were 
greater expectations than my own. 

"I think I shall trade, also," said he, putting his 
thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, "to the West Indies, 
for sugar, tobacco, and rum. Also to Ceylon, specially 
for elephants' tusks." 

" You will want a good many ships," said I. 

" A perfect fleet," said he. 

Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these 
transactions, I asked him where the ships he insured 
mostly traded to at present ? 

"I haven't begun insuring yet," he replied. "I am 
looking about me." 

Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with 
Barnard's Inn. I said (in a tone of conviction), 
" Ah-h!" 

" Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about 
me." 

" Is a counting-house profitable ?" I asked. 

"To do you mean to the young fellow who's in it?" 

he asked, in reply. 

"Yes; to you." 

"Why, n-no; not to me." He said this with the air 
of one carefully reckoning up and striking a balance. 
" Not directly profitable. That is, it doesn't pay me 
anything, and I have to keep myself." 

This certainly had not a profitable appearance and, I 
shook my head as if I would imply that it would be 
difficult to lay by much accumulative capital from 
such a source of income. 

"But the thing is," said Herbert Pocket, "that you 
look about you. That's the grand thing. You are in a 
counting-house, you know, and you look about you." 

It struck me as a singular implication that you 
couldn't be out of a counting-house, you know, arid look 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 179 

about you; but I silently deferred to his experience. 

"Then the time comes," said Herbert, "when you 
see your opening. And you go in, and you swoop upon it 
and you make your capital, and then there you are ! 
When you have once made your capital, you have 
nothing to do but employ it." 

This was very like his way of conducting that en- 
counter in the garden; very like. His manner of bear- 
ing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded % to his 
manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that 
he took all blows and buffets now, with just the same 
air as he had taken mine then. It was evident that he 
had nothing around him but the simplest necessaries, 
for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have 
been sent in on my account from the coffee-house or 
somewhere else. 

Yet, having already made his fortune in his own 
mind, he was so unassuming with it that I felt quite 
grateful to him for not being puffed up. It was a 
pleasant addition to his naturally pleasant ways, and 
we got on famously. In the evening we went out 
for a walk on the streets, and went half-price to the 
Theatre; and next day we went to church at West- 
minister Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in 
the Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses 
there, and wished Joe did. 

On a moderate computation, it was many months, 
that Sunday, since I had left Joe and Biddy. The 
space interposed between myself and them, partook of 
that expansion, and our marshes were any distance off. 
That I could have been at our old church in my old 
church-going clothes, on the very last Sunday that ever 
was, seemed a combination of impossibilities, geograph- 
ical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the London 
streets so crowded with people and so brilliantly 
lighted in the dusk of evening, there were depressing 
hints of reproaches for that I had put the poor old 
kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of 
night, the footsteps of some incapable impostor of a 
porter mooning about Barnard's Inn, under pretence 
of watching it, fell hollow on my heart. 

On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, 
Herbert went to the counting-house to report himself — 
to look about him, too, I suppose — and I bore him com- 



180 ; GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

pany. He was to come awaj^ in an hour or two to at- 
tend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for 
him. It appeared to me that the eggs from which 
young Insurers were hatched, were incubated in dust 
and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the 
places to which those incipient giants repaired on a 
Monday morning. Nor did the counting-house where 
Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at all a good Ob- 
servatory; being a back second floor up a yard, of a 
grimy presence in all particulars, and with a look 
into another back second floor, rather than a look out. 

I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon 
'Change and I saw fluey men sitting there under the 
bills about shipping, whom I took to be great mer- 
chants, though I couldn't understand why they should 
all be out of spirits. When Herbert came, we went 
and had lunch at a celebrated house which I then quite 
venerated, but now believe to have been the most abject 
superstition in Europe, and where I could not help 
noticing, even then, that there was much more gravy 
on the tablecloths and knives and waiters' clothes, than 
in the steaks. This collation disposed of at a moderate 
price (considering the grease : which was not charged 
for), we went back to Barnard's Inn and got my little 
portmanteau, and then took coach for Hammersmith. 
We arrived there at two or three o'clock in the after- 
noon, and had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket's 
house. Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct 
into a little garden overlooking the river, where Mr. 
Pocket's children were playing about. And unless I 
deceive myself on a point where my interests or prepos- 
sessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. 
and Mrs. Pocket's children were not growing up or be- 
ing brought up, but were tumbling up. 

Mrs. Pocket was sitting on, a garden chair under a 
tree, reading, with her legs upon another garden chair; 
and Mrs. Pocket's two nursemaids were looking about 
them, while the children played. " Mamma," said Her- 
bert, " this is young Mr. Pip." Upon which Mrs. Pocket 
received me with an appearance of amiable dignity. 

"Master Alick and Miss Jane," cried one of the 
nurses to two of the children, " if you go a bouncing 
up against them bushes you'll fall over into the river 
and be drowneded, and what'll your pa say then!" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 181 

At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket's 
handkerchief, and said, "If that don't make six times 
you've dropped it, Mum!" Upon which Mrs. Pocket 
laughed and said, "Thank you, Flopson," and settling 
herself in one chair only, resumed her book. Her 
countenance immediately assumed a knitted and intent 
expression as if she had been reading for a week, but 
before she could have read half-a-dozen 'lines, she fixed 
her eyes upon me, and said, "I hope your mamma is 
quite well ? " This unexpected inquiry put me into such 
a difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest way 
that if there had been any such person I had no doubt 
she would have been quite well, and would have been 
very much obliged, and would have sent her compli- 
ments, when the nurse came to my rescue. 

"Well!" she cried, picking up the pocket-handker- 
chief, "if that don't make seven times! What are 
you a doing of this afternoon, Mum?" Mrs. Pocket 
received her property, at first with a look of unutter- 
able surprise as if she had never seen it before, and 
then with a laugh of recognition, and said, " Thank 
you, Flopson," and forgot me, and went on reading. 

I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there 
were no fewer than six little Pockets present, in various 
stages of tumbling up. I had scarcely arrived at the 
total when a seventh was heard, as in the region of air, 
wailing dolefully. 

"If there ain't Baby!" said Flopson, appearing to 
think it most surprising. " Make haste up, Millers." 

Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the 
house, and by degrees the child's wailing was hushed 
and stopped, as if it were a young ventriloquist with 
something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read all the time, 
and I was curious to know what the book could be. 

We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come 
out to us; at any rate, we waited there, and so I had an 
opportunity of observing the remarkable family phe- 
nomenon that whenever any of the children strayed 
near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped 
themselves up and tumbled over her — always very much 
to her momentary astonishment, and their own more 
enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to account for 
this surprising circumstance, and could not help giving 
my mind to speculations about it, until by-and-by Millers 



182 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

came down with the baby, which baby was handed to 
Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs. Pocket, 
when she too went fairly headforemost over Mrs. 
Pocket, baby and all, and was caught by Herbert and 
myself. 

"Gracious me, Flopson!" said Mrs. Pocket, looking 
off her book for a moment, "everybody's tumbling." 

"Gracious you, indeed, Mum!" returned Flopson, 
very red in the face, " what have you got there? " 

"J got here, Flopson?" asked Mrs. Pocket. 

"Why, if it ain't your footstool!" cried Flopson. 
" And if you keep it under your skirts like that, who's 
to help tumbling? Here! Take the baby, Mum, and 
give me your book." 

Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly 
danced the infant a little in her lap, while the other 
children played about it. This had lasted but a very 
short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders 
that they were all to be taken into the house for a nap. 
Thus I made the second discovery on that first occa- 
sion, that the nurture of the little Pockets consisted of 
alternately tumbling up and lying down. 

Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers 
had got the children into the house, like a little flock of 
sheep, and Mr. Pocket came out of it to make my ac- 
quaintance, I was not much surprised to find that Mr. 
Pocket was a gentleman with a rather perplexed expres- 
sion of face, and with his very grey hair disordered on 
his head, as if he didn't quite see his way to putting 
anything straight. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



MR. POCKET said he was glad to see me, and he 
hoped I was not sorry to see him. " For, I really 
am not," he added, with his son's smile, "an alarming 
personage." He was a young-looking man, in spite of 
his perplexities and his very grey hair, and his manner 
seemed quite natural. I use the word natural, in the 
sense of its being unaffected; there was something 
comic in his distraught way, as though it would have 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 183 

been downright ludicrous but for his own perception 
that it was very near being so. When he had talked 
with me a little, he said to Mrs. Pocket with a rather 
anxious contraction of his eyebrows, which were black 
and handsome, "Belinda, I hope you have welcomed 
Mr. Pip ?" And sh* looked up from her book, and 
said, "Yes." She then smiled upon me in an absent 
state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of 
orange-flower water ? As the question had no bear- 
ing, near or remote, on any foregone or subsequent 
transaction, I considered it to have been thrown out, like 
her previous approaches, in general conversational con- 
descension. 

I found out within a few hours, and may mention at 
once, that Mrs. Pocket was the only daughter of a cer- 
tain quite accidental deceased Knight, who had in- 
vented for himself a conviction that his deceased father 
would have been made a Baronet but for somebody's 
determined opposition arising out of entirely personal 
motives — I forget whose, if I ever knew — the Sover- 
eign's, the Prime Minister's, the Lord Chancellor's, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury's, anybody's — and had tacked 
himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this 
quite supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted 
himself for storming the English grammar at the point 
of the pen, in a desperate address engrossed on vellum, 
on the occasion of the laying of the first stone of some 
building or other, and for handing some Royal Person- 
age either the trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, 
he had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her 
cradle as one who in the nature of things must marry 
a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition 
of plebeian domestic knowledge. 

So successful a watch and ward had been established 
over the young lady by this judicious parent, that she 
had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless 
and useless. With her character thus happily formed, 
in the first bloom of her youth she had encountered 
Mr. Pocket: who was also in the first bloom of youth, 
and not quite decided whether to mount to the Wool- 
sack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing 
the one or the other was a mere question of time, he 
and Mrs. Pocket had taken Time by the forelock (when, 
to judge from its length, it would seem to have wanted 



184 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

cutting), and had married without the knowledge of 
the judicious parent. The judicious parent, having 
nothing to bestow or withhold but his blessing, had 
handsomely settled that dower upon them after a short 
struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his wife 
was "a treasure for a Prince.'* Mr. Pocket had in- 
vested the Prince's treasure in the ways of the world 
ever since, and it was supposed to have brought him in 
but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in gen- 
eral the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because 
she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the 
object of a queer sort of forgiving reproach, because 
he had never got one. 

Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me 
my room: which was a pleasant one, and so furnished 
as that I could use it with comfort for my own private 
sitting-room. He then knocked at the doors of two 
other similar rooms, and introduced me to their occu- 
pants, by name Drummle and Startop. Drummle, an 
old-looking young man of a heavy order of architecture, 
was whistling. Startop, younger in years and appear- 
ance, was reading and holding his head, as if he thought 
himself in danger of exploding it with too strong a 
charge of knowledge. 

Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of 
being in somebody else's hands, that I wondered who 
really was in possession of the house and let them live 
there, until I found this unknown power to be the ser- 
vants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in re- 
spect of saving trouble; but it had the appearance o" 
being expensive, for the servants felt it a duty they 
owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and drink- 
ing, and to keep a deal of company down stairs. They 
allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet 
it always appeared to me that by far the best part of 
the house to have boarded in, would have been the 
kitchen — always supposing the boarder capable of self- 
defence, for, before I had been there a week, a neigh- 
bouring lady with whom the family were personally 
acquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen Millers 
slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, 
who burst into tears on receiving the note, and said 
that it was an extraordinary thing that the neighbours 
couldn't mind their own business. 



i 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 185 

By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that 
Mr. Pocket had been educated at Harrow and at 
Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself ; but 
that when he had had the happiness of marrying 
Mrs. Pocket very early in life, he had impaired his 
prospects and taken tip the calling of a Grinder. 
After grinding a number of dull blades — of whom it 
was remarkable that their fathers, when influential, 
were always going to help him to preferment, but 
always forgot to do it when the blades had left the 
Grindstone — he had wearied of that poor work and 
had come to London. Here, after gradually failing 
in loftier hopes, he had "read" with divers who had 
lacked opportunities or neglected them, and had 
refurbished divers others for special occasions, and had 
turned his acquirements to the account of literary 
compilation and correction, and on such means, added 
to some very moderate private resources, still main- 
tained the house I saw. 

Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbour: a widow 
lady of that highly sympathetic nature that she agreed 
with everybody, blessed everybody, and shed tears and 
smiles on everybody, according to circumstances. This 
lady's name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honour of 
taking her down to dinner on the day of my installa- 
tion. She gave me to understand on the stairs, that it 
was a blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. Pocket 
should be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen 
to read with him. That did not extend to me, she told 
me in a gush of love and confidence (at that time, I had 
known her something less than five minutes); if they 
were all like Me, it would be quite another thing. 

" But dear Mrs. Pocket," said Mrs. Coiler, " after 
her early disappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket 
was to blame in that), requires so much luxury and 
elegance " 

"Yes, ma'am," I said to stop her, for I was afraid 
she was going to cry. 

" And she is of so aristocratic a disposition " 

" Yes, ma'am," I said again, with the same object as 
before. 

" — that it is hard," said Mrs. Coiler, "to have dear 
Mr. Pocket's time and attention diverted from dear 
Mrs. Pocket," 






180 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I could not help thinking that it might be harder 
the butcher's time anci attention were diverted fro 
dear Mrs. Pocket ; but I said nothing, and indeed had 
enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my 
company-manners. 

It came to my knowledge through what passed be 
tween Mrs. Pocket and Drummle, while I was attentiv 
to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other instru 
ments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose chri 
tian name was Bentley, was actually the next heir bu 
one to a baronetcy. It further appeared that the book 
I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the garden, was all 
about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which 
her grandpapa would have come into the book, if he 
ever had come at all. Drummle didn't say much, but 
in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky kind of fel- 
low) he spoke as one of the elect, and recognised Mrs. 
Pocket as a woman and a sister. No one but them- 
selves and Mrs. Coiler the toady neighbour showed any 
interest in this part of the conversation, and it appeared 
to me that it was painful to Herbert ; but it promised 
to last a long time, when the page came in with the an- 
nouncement of a domestic affliction. It was, in effect, 
that the cook had mislaid the beef. To my unutterable 
amazement, I now, for the first time, saw Mr. Pocket 
relieve his mind by going through a performance that 
struck me as very extraordinary, but which made no 
impression on anybody else, and with which I soon be- 
came as familiar as the rest. He laid down the carving- 
knife and fork — being engaged in carving at the mo- 
ment — put his two hands into his disturbed hair, and 
appeared to make an extraordinary effort to lift him- 
self up by it. When he had done this, and had not lifted 
himself up at all, he went on with what he was about. 

Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to 
flatter me. I liked it for a few moments, but she flattered 
me so very grossly that the pleasure was soon over. 
She had a serpentine way of coming close at me when 
she pretended to be vitally interested in the friends and 
localities I had left, which was altogether snaky and 
f ork-tongued ; and when she made an occasional bounce 
upon Startop (who said very little to her), or upon 
Drummle (who said less), I rather envied them for being 
on the opposite side of the table. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 187 

After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. 
Ooiler made admiring comments on their eyes, noses, 
and legs — a sagacious way of improving their minds. 
There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides 
the baby- who might have been either, and the baby's 
next successor who was as yet neither. They were 
broughtln by Flopson and Millers, much as though those 
two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting 
somewhere for children and had enlisted these; while 
Mrs. Pocket looked at the young Nobles that ought to 
have been, as if she rather thought she had had the 
pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite 
know what to make of them. 

" Here ! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby," 
said Flopson. " Don't take it that way, or you'll get its 
head under the table." 

Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and 
got its head upon the table; which was announced to 
all present by a prodigious concussion. 

" Dear, dear! give it me back, Mum," said Flopson; 
" and Miss Jane, come and dance the baby, do!" 

One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to 
have prematurely taken upon herself some charge of 
the others, stepped out of her place by me, and danced 
to and from the baby until it left off crying, and laughed. 
Then all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in 
the mean time had twice endeavoured to lift himself 
up by the hair) laughed, and we all laughed and were 
glad. 

Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints 
like a Dutch doll, then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket's 
lap, and gave it the nutcrackers to play with: at the same 
time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice that the 
handles of that instrument were not likely to agree 
with its eyes, and sharply charging Miss Jane to look 
after the same. Then, the two nurses left the room, and 
had a lively scuffle on the staircase with a dissipated 
page who had waited at dinner, and who had clearly lost 
half his buttons at the gaming-table. 

I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket's 
falling into a discussion with Drummle respecting two 
baronetcies, while she ate a sliced orange steeped in 
sugar and wine, and forgetting all about the baby on 
her lap: who did most appalling things with the nut- 






188 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

crackers. At length little Jane perceived its young 
brains to be imperilled, softly left her place, and with 
many small artifices coaxed the dangerous weapon 
away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange at about the 
same time, and not approving of this, said to Jane: 

" You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down 
this instant!" 

" Mamma dear/' lisped the little girl, " baby ood have 
put hith eyeth out." 

"How dare you tell me so?" retorted Mrs. Pocket. 
" Go and sit down in your chair this moment!" 

Mrs. Pocket's dignity was so crushing, that I felt 
quite abashed: as if I myself had done something to 
rouse it. 

"Belinda," remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other 
end of the table, "how can you be so unreasonable? 
Jane only interfered for the protection of baby." 

"I will not allow anybody to interfere," said Mrs. 
Pocket. "I am surprised, Matthew, that you should 
expose me to the affront of interference." 

"Good God!" cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of 
desolate desperation. " Are infants to be nutcrackered 
into their tombs, and is nobody to save them?" 

"I will not be interfered with by Jane," said Mrs. 
Pocket, with a majestic glance at that innocent little 
offender. "I hope I know my poor grandpapa's posi- 
tion. Jane, indeed!" 

Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this 
time really did lift himself some inches out of his chair. 
"Hear this!" he helplessly exclaimed to the elements. 
"Babies are to be nutcrackered dead, for people's poor 
grandpapa's positions!" Then he let himself down 
again, and became silent. 

We all looked awkwardly at the table-cloth while this 
was going on. A pause succeeded, during which the 
honest and irrepressible baby made a series of leaps 
and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me to be the 
only member of the family (irrespective of servants) 
with whom it had any decided acquaintance. 

" Mr. Drummle," said Mrs. Pocket, " will you ring for 
Flopson? Jane, you undutiful little thing, go and lie 
down. Now, baby darling, come with ma." 

The baby was the soul of honour, and protested with 
all its might. It doubled itself up the wrong way over 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 189 

Mrs. Pocket's arm, exhibited a pair of knitted shoes 
and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its soft 
face, and was carried out in the highest state of mu- 
tiny. And it gained its point after all, for I saw it 
through the window within a few minutes, being nursed 
by little Jane. 

It happened that the other five children were left 
behind at the dinner-table, through Flopson's having 
some private engagement, and their not being anybody 
else's business. I thus became aware of the mutual 
relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were 
exemplified in the following manner. Mr. Pocket, with 
the normal perplexity of his face heightened, and his 
hair rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, as if he 
couldn't make out how they came to be boarding and 
lodging in that establishment, and why they hadn't 
been billeted by Nature on somebody else. Then, in a 
distant, Missionary way he asked them certain ques- 
tions — as why little Joe had that hole in his frill: who 
said, Pa, Flopson was going to mend it when she had 
time — and how little Fanny came by that whitlow: who 
said, Pa, Millers was going to poultice it when she 
didn't forget. Then, he melted into parental tender- 
ness, and gave them a shilling apiece and told them 
to go and play; and then as they went out, with one 
very strong effort to lift himself up by the hair Jie dis- 
missed the hopeless subject. 

In the evening there was rowing on the river. As 
Drummle and Startop had each a boat, I resolved to set 
up mine, and to cut them both out. I was pretty good 
at most exercises in which country -boys are adepts, but, 
as I was conscious of wanting elegance or style for the 
Thames — not to say for other waters — I at once engaged 
to place myself under the tuition of the winner of a 
prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I 
was introduced by my new allies. This practical 
authority confused me very much, by saying I had the 
arm of a blacksmith. If he could have known how 
nearly the compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he 
would have paid it. 

There was a supper-tray after we got home at night, 
and I think we should all have enjoyed ourselves, but 
for a rather disagreeable domestic occurrence. Mr. 
Pocket was in good spirits, when a housemaid came in, 






190 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

• 

and said, " If you please, sir, I should wish to speak to 
you." 

"Speak to your master?" said Mrs. Pocket, whose 
dignity was roused again. "How can you think of 
such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson. Or speak to 
me — at some other time." 

" Begging your pardon, ma'am," returned the house- 
maid, " I should wish to speak at once, and to speak to 
master." 

Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we 
made the best of ourselves until he came back. 

"This is a pretty thing, Belinda!" said Mr. Pocket, 
returning with a countenance expressive of grief arid 
despair. "Here's the cook lying insensibly drunk on 
the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh butte* 
made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease ! " 

Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, 
and said, " This is that odious Sophia's doing ! " 

"What do you mean, Belinda?" demanded Mr. 
Pocket. 

" Sophia has told you," said Mrs. Pocket. " Did I not 
see her with my own eyes and hear her with my own 
ears, come into the room just now and ask to speak to 
you?" 

" But has she not taken me down stairs, Belinda," 
returned Mr. Pocket, "and shown me the woman, and 
the bundle too?" 

" And do you defend her, Matthew," said Mrs. Pocket, 
"for making mischief ?" 

Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan. 

" Am I, grandpapa's granddaughter, to be nothing in 
the house?" said Mrs. Pocket. "Besides, the cook has 
always been a very nice respectful woman, and said in 
the most natural manner when she came to look after 
the situation, that she felt I was born to be a 
Duchess." 

There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he 
dropped upon in the attitude of the Dying Gladiator. 
Still, in that attitude he said, with a hollow voice, 
" Good night, Mr. Pip," when I deemed it advisable to 
go to bed and leave him. 




GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 191 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

AFTER two or three days, when I had established 
myself in my room and had gone backwards and 
forwards to London several times, and had ordered all 
I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long 
talk together. He knew more of my intended career 
than I knew myself, for he referred to his having been 
told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for any 
profession, and that I should be well enough educated 
for my destiny if I could " hold my own " with the aver- 
age of young men in prosperous circumstances. I 
acquiesced, of course, knowing nothing to the contrary. 

He advised my attending certain places in London, 
for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, 
and my investing him with the functions of explainer 
and director of all my studies. He hoped that with 
intelligent assistance I should meet with little to dis- 
courage me, and should soon be able to dispense with 
any aid but his. Through his way of saying this, and 
much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on 
confidential terms with me in an admirable manner; 
and I may state at once that he was always so zealous 
and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me, that 
he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine 
with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I 
have no doubt I should have returned the compliment 
as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and each of us 
did the other justice. Nor, did I ever regard him as 
having anything ludicrous about him — or anything but 
what was serious, honest, and good — in his tutor com- 
munication with me. 

When these points were settled, and so far carried out 
as that I had begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me 
that if I could retain my bedroom in Barnard's Inn, my 
life would be agreeably varied, while my manners 
would be none the worse for Herbert's society. Mr. 
Pocket did not object to this arrangement, but urged 
that before any step could possibly be taken in it, it 
must be submitted to my guardian. I felt that his 
delicacy arose out of the consideration that the plan 
would save Herbert some expense, so I went off to Little 
Britain and imparted my wish to Mr. Jaggers. 






192 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

If If I could buy the furniture now hired forme," said 
I, " and one or two other little things, I should be quite 
at home there." 

"Go it !" said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. "I 
told you you'd get on. Well ! How much do you 
want?" 

I said I didn't know how much. 

"Come!" retorted Mr. Jaggers. "How much? Fifty 
pounds?" 

" Oh, not nearly so much." 

" Five pounds ? " said Mr. Jaggers. 

This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, 
" Oh ! more than that." 

"More than that, eh ?" retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in 
wait for me, with his hands in his pockets, his head on 
one side, and his eyes on the wall behind me; " how much 
more ? " 

" It is so difficult to fix a sum," said I, hesitating. 

" Come! " said Mr. Jaggers. " Let's get at it. Twice 
five; will that do? Three times five; will that do? 
Four times five ; will that do?" 

I said I thought that would do handsomely. 

"Four times five will do handsomely, will it?" said 
Mr. Jaggers, knitting his brows. "Now. what do you 
make of four times five?" 

"What do I make of it?" 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Jaggers ; " how much? " 

"I suppose you make it twenty pounds," said I, 
smilling. 

" Never mind what J make it, my friend," observed 
Mr. Jaggers, with a knowing and contradictory toss of 
his head. " I want to know what you make it." 

" Twenty pounds, of course." 

"Wemmick!" said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office 
door. " Take Mr. Pip's written order, and pay him 
twenty pounds." 

This strongly marked way of doing business made a 
strongly marked impression on me, and that not of an 
agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never laughed ; but he 
wore great bright creaking boots ; and, in poising him- 
self on those boots, with his large head bent down and 
his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he 
sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed 
in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened to go out 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 193 

now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said 
to Wemmick that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. 
Jaggers's manner. 

" Tell him that, and he'll take it as a compliment," 
answered Wemmick; "he don't mean that you should 
know what to make of it. — Oh !" for I looked sur- 
prised, "it's not personal; it's professional: only pro- 
fessional." 

Wemmick was at his desk, lunching — and crunching 
— on a dry hard biscuit; pieces of which he threw from 
time to time into his slit of a mouth, as if he were post- 
ing them. 

" Always seems to me," said Wemmick, "as if he 
had set a man-trap and was watching it. Suddenly — 
click — you're caught!" 

Without remarking that man-traps were not among 
the amenities of life, I said I supposed he was very 
skilful ? 

"Deep," said Wemmick, " as Australia." Pointing 
with his pen at the office floor, to express that Australia 
was understood, for the purposes of the figure, to be 
symmetrically on the opposite spot of the globe. " If 
there was anything deeper," added Wemmick, bringing 
his pen to paper, " he'd be it." 

Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and 
Wemmick said, "Ca-pi-tal!" Then I asked if there 
were many clerks ? to which he replied : 

" We don't run much into clerks, because there's only 
one Jaggers, and people won't have him at second 
hand. There are only four of us. Would you like to 
see 'em? You are one of us, as I may say." 

I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put 
all the biscuit into the post, and had paid me my money 
from a cash-box in a safe, the key of which safe he 
kept somewhere down his back and produced from his 
coat-collar like an iron pigtail, we went up stairs. The 
house was dark and shabby, and the greasy shoulders 
that had left their mark in Mr. Jaggers's room, seemed 
to have been shuffling up and down the staircase for 
years. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked some- 
thing between a publican and a rat-catcher — a large 
pale puffed swollen man — was attentively engaged with 
three or four people of shabby appearance, whom he 
treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to be 
VOL. I. 13 






194 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers's coffers. " Get- 
ting evidence together," said Mr. Wemmick, as we came 
out, " for the Bailey." In the room over that, a little 
flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair (his cropping 
seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) 
was similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, 
whom Mr. Wemmick presented to me as a smelter who 
kept his pot always boiling, and who would melt me 
anything I pleased — and who was in an excessive white 
perspiration, as if he had been trying his art on him- 
self. In a back room, a high-shouldered man with a 
face-ache tied up in dirty flannel, who was dressed in 
old black clothes that bore the appearance of having 
been waxed, was stooping over his work of making fair 
copies of the notes of the other two gentlemen, for Mr. 
Jaggers's own use. 

This was all the establishment. When we went down 
stairs again, Wemmick led me into my guardian's room 
and said, " This you've seen already." 

"Pray," said I, as the two odious casts with the 
twitchy leer upon them caught my sight again, "whose 
likenesses are those?" 

" These," said Wemmick, getting upon the chair, and 
blowing the dust off the horrible heads before bringing 
them down. "These are two celebrated ones. Famous 
clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This 
chap (why you must have come down in the night 
and been peeping into the inkstand, to get this blot 
upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered his mas- 
ter, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evi- 
dence, didn't plan it badly." 

"Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, 
as Wemmick spat upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub 
with his sleeve. 

" Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was 
made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. 
You had a particular fancy for me, hadn't you, Old 
Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this affec- 
tionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing 
the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the 
urn upon it, and saying, " Had it made for me express! % 

" Is the lady anybody?" said I. 

" No," returned Wemmick. " Only his game. (You 
liked your bit of game, didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 195 

lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except one — and she wasn't of 
this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't have caught 
Iter looking after this urn — unless there was something 
to drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus direct- 
ed to his brooch, he put down the cast, and polished the 
brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. 

" Did that other creature come to the same end?" I 
asked. " He has the same look." 

"You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine 
look. Much as if one nostril was caught up with a 
horsehair and a little fish-hook. Yes, he came to the 
same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. 
He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the 
supposed testators to sleep too. You were a gentle- 
manly cove, though " (Mr. "Wemmick was again apostro- 
phising), "and you said you could write Greek. Yah, 
Bounceable! What a liar you were. I never met such 
a liar as you!" Before putting his late friend on his 
shelf again, Wemmick touched the largest of hi? 
mourning rings, and said, "Sent out to buy it for me 
only the day before." 

While he was putting up the other cast and coming 
down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that 
all his personal jewellery was derived from like sources. 
As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured 
on the liberty of asking him the question, when he 
stood before me, dusting his hands. 

"Oh yes," he returned, " these are all gifts of that 
kind. One brings another, you see; that's the way of it. 
I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're 
property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, 
they're property and portable. It don't signify to you 
with your brilliant look-out, but as to myself, my guid- 
ing-star always is, Get hold of portable property." 

When I had rendered homage to this light, he went 
on to say in a friendly manner : 

" If at any odd time when you have nothing better to 
do, you wouldn't mind coming over to see me at Wal- 
worth, I could offer you a bed, and I should consider it 
an honour. I have not much to show you; but such two 
or three curiosities as I have got, you might like to look 
over; and I am fond of a bit of garden and a summer- 
house." 

I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. 






196 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" Thankee, " said he : "then we'll consider that it's to 
come off, when convenient to you. Have you dined 
with Mr. Jaggers yet?" 

"Not yet." 

" Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and 
good wine; I'll give you punch, and not bad punch. And 
now I'll tell you something. When you go to dine with 
Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." 

" Shall I see something very uncommon? " 

"Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast 
tamed. Not so very uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, 
that depends on the original wildness of the beast, and 
the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of 
Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." 

I told him I would do so, with all the interest and 
curiosity that his preparation awakened. As I was 
taking my departure, he asked me if I would like to 
devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" 

For several reasons, and not least because I didn't 
clearly know what Mr. Jaggers would be found to be 
"at," I replied in the affirmative. We dived into the 
City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where a 
blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased 
with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at 
the bar, uncomfortably chewing something; while my 
guardian had a woman under examination or cross- 
examination — I don't know which — and was striking 
her, and the bench, and everybody with awe. If any- 
body, of whatsoever degree, "said a word that he didn't 
approve of, he instantly required to have it "taken 
down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he 
said, "I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made 
an admission, he said, "Now I have got you!" The 
magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. 
Thieves and thief -takers hung in dread rapture on his 
words, and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned 
in their direction, Which side he was on, I couldn't 
make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the whole 
place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on 
tip-toe, he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was 
making the legs of the old gentleman who presided, 
quite convulsive under the table, by his denunciations 
of his conduct as the representative of British law and 
justice in that chair that day. 



i 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. ' 19? 

CHAPTER XXV. 

BENTLEY DRTJMMLE, who was so sulky a fellow 
that he even took up a book as if its writer had clone 
him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a 
more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and 
comprehension — in the sluggish complexion of his face, 
and in the large awkward tongue that seemed to loll 
about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room — 
he was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. 
He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had 
nursed this combination of qualities until they made the 
discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, 
Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was 
a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen 
heads thicker than most gentlemen. 

Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at 
home when he ought to have been at school, but he was 
devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond 
measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and 
was — "as you may see, though you never saw her," 
said Herbert to me — "exactly like his mother." It was 
but natural that I should take to him much more kindly 
than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings 
of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast 
of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while 
Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the 
overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would 
always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphib- 
ious creature, even when the tide would have sent him 
fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming 
after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our 
own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moon- 
light in mid-stream. 

Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I 
presented him with a^ half -share in my boat, which was 
the occasion of his often coming down to Hammer- 
smith ; and my possession of a half -share in his cham- 
bers often took me up to London. We used to walk be- 
I tween the two places at all hours. I have an affection 
! for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as 
\ it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried 
, youth and hope. 







198 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or 
two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla tumed up. Camilla was Mr. 
Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss 
Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She 
was a cousin — an indigestive single woman, who called 
her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people 
hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappoint- 
ment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in 
my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. 
Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own 
interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I 
had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in con- 
tempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been 
heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble 
reflected light upon themselves. 

These were the surroundings among which I settled 
down, and applied myself to my education. I soon con- 
tracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount 
of money that within a few short months I should have 
thought almost fabulous ; but through good and evil I 
stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, 
than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. 
Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast ; and, 
with one or the other always at my elbow to give me 
the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my 
road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I 
had done less. 

I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I 
thought I would write him a note and propose to go 
home with him on a certain evening. He replied that 
it would give him much pleasure, and that he would ex- 
pect me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and 
there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his 
back as the clock struck 

"Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" 
said he. 

"Certainly," said I, "if you approve." 

" Very much," was Wemmick's reply, " for I have 
had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to 
stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I have got for 
supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak — which is 
of home preparation — and a cold roast fowl — which is 
from the cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the 
master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 199 

the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded 
him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, 'Pick us 
out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to 
keep you in the box another day or two, we could have 
done it.' He said to that, ' Let me make you a present 
of the best fowl in the shop.' I let him, of course. As 
far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't ob- 
ject to an aged parent, I hope?" 

I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, 
until he added, " Because I have got an aged parent at 
my place." I then said what politeness required. 

"So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he 
pursued, as we walked along. 

"Not yet." 

"He told me so this afternoon when he heard you 
were coming. I expect you'll have an invitation to- 
morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. Three of 
'em ; ain't there?" 

Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle 
as one of my intimate associates, I answered, 
"Yes." 

" Well, he's going to ask the whole gang ;" I hardly 
felt complimented by the word; "and whatever he 
gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look forward to 
variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another 
rum thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a 
moment's pause, as if the remark followed on the house- 
keeper understood ; "he never lets a door or window 
be fastened at night." 

" Is he never robbed?" 

"That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and 
gives it out publicly, ' I want to see the man who'll rob 
me.' Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times 
if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in 
our front office, ' You know where I live ; now, no bolt 
is ever drawn there ; why don't you do a stroke of busi- 
ness with me? Come; can't I tempt you?' Not a man 
of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love 
or money." 

" They dread him so much?" said I. 

" Dread him," said Wemmick. " I believe you they 
dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his de- 
fiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every 
spoon," 



200 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"So they wouldn't have much/' I observed, even if 
they " 

" Ah ! But he would have much," said Wemmick, 
cutting me short, " and they know it. He'd have their 
lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he 
could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't 
get, if he gave his mind to it." 

I was falling into meditation on my guardian's great- 
ness, when Wemmick remarked: 

"As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural 
depth, you know. A river's its natural depth, and he's 
his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. That's 
real enough." 

" It's very massive," said I. 

" Massive?" repeated Wemmick. " I think so. And 
his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred 
pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about 
seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about 
that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, 
among them, who wouldn't identify the smallest link 
in that chain, and drop it as if it was red-hot, if in- 
veigled into touching it." 

At first with such discourse, and afterwards with con- 
versation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick 
and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me 
to understand that we had arrived in the district of 
Walworth. 

It appeared to be a collection of black lanes, ditches, 
and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather 
dull retirement. Wemmick's house was a little wooden 
cotttage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top 
of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted 
with guns. 

"My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; 
don't it?" 

I highly commended it. I think it was the smallest 
house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows 
(by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic 
door, almost too small to get in at. 

•'That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, 
" and on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. 
After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it up— so — and 
cutoff the communication." 

The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a cjtiasm about 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 201 

four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant 
to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made 
it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not 
merely mechanically. 

"At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said 
Wemmick, "the gun fires. There he is, you see! 
And when you hear him go, I think you'll say he's a 
Stinger." 

The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a 
separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was 
protected from the weather by an ingenious little tar- 
paulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. 

"Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, 
so as not to impede the idea of fortifications — for it's a 
principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and 
keep it up — I don't know whether that's your opinion 

I said, decidedly. 

" — At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and 
rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, 
you see, and grow cucumbers; and you'll judge at sup- 
per what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said 
Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook 
his head, " if you can suppose the little place besieged, 
it would hold out a devil of a time in point of pro- 
visions." 

Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen 
yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious 
twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; 
and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. 
Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose 
margin the bower was raised. This piece of water 
(with an island in the middle which might have been 
the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had 
constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little 
mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that 
powerful extent that it made the back of your hand 
quite wet. 

" I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and 
my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own 
Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in acknowledging 
my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. 
It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases 
the Aged. You wouldn't mind being at once intro- 



202 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

duced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put you 
out?" 

I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the 
Castle. There, we found, sitting by a fire, a very old 
man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, 
and well cared for, but intensely deaf. 

"Well, aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands 
with him in a cordial and jocose way, "how am you?" 

"All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. 

"Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and 
I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, 
Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at him, if 
you please, like winking!" 

" This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old 
man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This 
is a pretty pleasure ground, sir. This spot and these 
beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the 
Nation, after my son's time, for the people's enjoyment." 

" You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said 
Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard 
face really softened; "there's a nod for you;" giving 
him a tremendous one; " there's another for you; " giving 
him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't 
you? If you're not tired, Mr. Pip — though I know it's 
tiring to strangers — will you tip him one more? You 
can't think how it pleases him." 

I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. 
We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and 
we sat down to our punch in the arbour; where Wem- 
mick told me as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken 
him a good many years to bring the property up to its 
present pitch of perfection. 

" Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" 

" Oh yes," said Wemmick. " I have got hold of it, a 
bit at a time. It's a freehold, by George!" 

" Is it, indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it? " 

" Never seen it," said Wemmick. " Never heard of 
it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; 
the office is one thing, and private life is another. 
When I go into the office I leave the Castle behind me, 
and when I come into the Castle I leave the office be- 
hind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you 
you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it pro- 
fessionally spoken about. " 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 203 

Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observ- 
ance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat 
there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine 
o'clock. " Getting near gun-fire/' said Wemmick then, 
as he laid down his pipe; " it's the Aged's treat." 

Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged 
heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a prelimi- 
nary to the perform ance of this great nightly ceremony. 
Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the 
moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker 
from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, 
and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a 
Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if 
it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and tea- 
cup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged — who I believe 
would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for 
holding on by the elbows — cried out exultingly, "He's 
fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentle- 
man until it is no figure of speech to declare that I abso- 
lutely could not see him. 

The interval between that time and supper, "Wem- 
mick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosi- 
ties. They were mostly of a felonious character; com- 
prising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had 
been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks 
of hair, and several manuscript confessions written 
under condemnation — upon which Mr. Wemmick set 
particular value as being, to use his own words, "every 
one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed 
among small specimens of china and glass, various 
neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and 
some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were 
all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which 
I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as 
the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I 
might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen 
bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of 
a roasting-jack. 

There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked 
after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the 
supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her the 
means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The 
supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather 
subject to dry-rot, insomuch that it tasted like a bad 



204 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I 
was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. 
Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bed- 
room, beyond their being such a very thin ceiling be- 
tween me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on 
my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that 
pole on my forehead all night. 

Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am 
afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he 
fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic win- 
dow pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at 
him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as 
good as the supper, and at half -past eight precisely we 
started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got 
dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth 
tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we 
got to his place of business and he pulled out his key 
from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his 
"Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge 
and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the 
Aged, had all been blown into space together by the 
last discharge of the Stinger. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



IT fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I 
had an early opportunity of comparing my guar- 
dian's establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. 
My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with 
his scented soap, when I went into the office from Wal- 
worth ; and he called me to him, and gave me the 
invitation for myself and friends which Wemmick had 
prepared me to receive. " No ceremony," he stipulated, 
"and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked 
him where we should come to (for I had no idea where 
he lived), and I believe it was in, his general objection 
to make anything like an admission, that he replied, 
" Come here, and 111 take you home with me." I 
embrace this opportunity of remarking that he washed 
his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He 
had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which 
smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 205 

had an unusually large jack-towel on a roller inside the 
door, and he would wash his hands, and wipe them and 
dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from 
a police-court or dismissed a client from his room. When 
I and my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next 
day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a 
darker complexion than usual, for, we found him with 
his head butted into this closet, not only washing his 
hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. 
And even when he had done all that, and had gone all 
round the jack-towel, he took out his pen-knife and 
scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat 
on. 

There were some people slinking about as usual when 
we passed out into the street, who were evidently anx- 
ious to speak with him; but there was something so 
conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled 
his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we 
walked along westward, he was recognised ever and 
again by some face in the crowd of the streets, and 
whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but he 
never otherwise recognised anybody, or took notice 
that anybody recognised him. 

He conducted us to Gerrard-street, Soho, to a house 
on the south side of that street. Rather a stately house* 
of its kind, but dolefully in want of painting, and with 
dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the 
door, and we all went into a stone nail, bare, gloomy, 
and little used. So, up a dark-brown staircase into a 
series of three dark-brown rooms on the first floor. 
There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and 
as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know 
what kind of loops I thought they looked like. 

Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second 
was his dressing room; the third, his bedroom. He told 
us that he held the whole house, but rarely used more 
of it than we saw. The table was comfortably laid — 
no silver in the service, of course — and at the side of his 
chair was a capacious dumbwaiter, with a variety of 
bottles and decanters on it, and four dishes of fruit for 
dessert. I noticed throughout, that he kept everything 
under his own hand, and distributed everything him- 
self. 

There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the 



306 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

backs of the books, that they were about evidence, 
criminal law, criminal biography, trials, acts of parlia- 
ment, and such things. The furniture was all very 
solid and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official 
look, however, and there was nothing merely orna- 
mental to be seen. In a corner was a liitle table of 
papers with a shaded lamp; so that he seemed to bring 
the office home with him in that respect too, and to 
wheel it out of an evening and fall to work. 

As he had scarcely seen my three companions until 
now — for, he and I had walked together — he stood 
on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, and took a 
searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed 
at once to be principally if not solely interested in 
Drummle. 

"Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoul- 
der and moving me to the window. "I don't know one 
from the other. Who's the Spider! " 

"The Spider?" said I. 

" The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." 

"That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with 
the delicate face is Startop." 

Not making the least account of "the one with the 
delicate face," he returned. "Bentley Drummle is his 
♦name, is it? I like the look of that fellow." 

He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all 
deterred by his replying in his heavy reticent way, but 
apparently led on by it to screw discourse out of him. 
I was looking at the two, when there came between me 
and them, the housekeeper with the first dish for the 
table. 

She was a woman of about forty, I supposed — but I 
may have thought her younger than she was. Rather 
tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely pale, with large 
faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot 
say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused 
her lips to be parted as if she were panting, and her 
face to bear a curious expression of suddenness and 
flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at 
the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face 
looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like 
the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches' caldron. 

She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on 
the arm with a finger to notify that dinner was ready, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 20? 

and vanished. We took our seats at the round table, 
and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, 
while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish 
of Ssh that the housekeeper had put on table, and we 
had a joint of equally choice mutton afterwards, and 
then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all the 
accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given 
out by our host from his dumb-waiter; and when they 
had made the circuit of the table, he always put them 
back again, Similarily, he dealt us clean plates and 
knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those 
just disused into two baskets on the ground by his chair. 
No other attendant than the housekeeper appeared. 
She set on every dish; and I always saw in her face, a 
face rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I 
made a dreadful likeness of that woman, by causing a 
face that had no other natural resemblance to it than it 
derived from flowing hair, to pass behind a bowl of 
flaming spirits in a dark room. 

Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, 
both by her own striking appearance and by Wemmick's 
preparation, I observed that whenever she was in the 
room, she kept her eyes attentively on my guardian, 
and that she would remove her hands from any dish 
she put before him, hesitatingly, as if she dreaded 
his calling her back, and wanted him to speak when 
she was nigh, if he had anything to say. I fancied that 
I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this, 
and a purpose of always holding her in suspense. 

Dinner went off gaily, and, although my guardian 
seemed to follow rather than originate subjects, I knew 
that he wrenched the weakest part of our dispositions 
out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing 
my tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronise 
Herbert, and to boast of my great prospects, before I 
quite knew that I had opened my lips. It was so with 
all of us, but with no one more than Drummle: the 
development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging 
and suspicious way at the rest, was screwed out of him 
before the fish was taken off. 

It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, 
that our conversation turned upon our rowing feats, 
and that Drummle was rallied for coming up behind of 
a night in that slow amphibious way of his. Drummle 



208 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our 
room to our company, and that as to skill he was more 
than our master, and that as to strength he could scatter 
us like chaff. By some invisible agency, my guardian 
wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about 
this trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm 
to show how muscular it was, and we all fell to baring 
and spanning our arms in a ridiculous manner. 

Now, the housekeeper was at that time clearing the 
table; my guardian, taking no heed of her, but with the 
side of his face turned from her, was leaning back in 
his chair biting the side of his forefinger and showing 
an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inex- 
plicable. Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the 
housekeeper's, like a trap, as she stretched it across the 
table. So suddenly and smartly did he do this, that we 
all stopped in our foolish contention. 

" If you talk of strength," said Mr. Jaggers, jPII show 
you a wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist." 

Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had 
already put her other hand behind her waist. " Master/' 
she said, in a low voice, with her eyes attentively and 
entreatingly fixed upon him. " Don't! " 

"J'll show you a wrist," repeated Mr, Jaggers, with an 
immovable determination to show it. " Molly, let them 
see your wrist." 

" Master," she again murmured. " Please! " 

"Molly," said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but 
obstinately looking at the opposite side of the room, " let 
them see both your wrists. Show them. Come! " 

He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up 
on the table. She brought her other hand from behind 
her, and held the two out side by side. The last wrist 
was much disfigured — deeply scarred and scarred across 
and across. When she held her hands out, she took 
her eyes from Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watch- 
fully on every one of the rest of us in succession. 

" There's power here," said Mr. Jaggers, coolly trac- 
ing out the sinews with his forefinger. " Very few men 
have the power of wrist that this woman has. It's re- 
markable what mere force of grip there is in these 
hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but 
I never saw stronger in that respect, man's or woman's, 
than these." 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 209 

While he said these words in a leisurely critical style, 
she continued to look at every one of us in regular suc- 
cession as we sat. The moment he ceased, she looked 
at him again. "That'll do, Molly," said Mr. Jaggers, 
giving her a slight nod; " you have been admired, and 
can go." She withdrew her hands and went out of the 
room, and Mr. Jaggers putting the decanters on from 
his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and passed round the 
wine. 

"At half -past nine, gentlemen," said he, "we must 
break up. Pray make the best use of your time. I am 
glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I drink to you." 

If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring 
him out still more, it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky 
triumph, Drummle showed his morose depreciation of 
the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree until 
he became downright intolerable. Through all his 
stages, Mr. Jaggers followed him with the same strange 
interest. He actually seemed to serve as a zest to Mr. 
Jaggers's wine. 

In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took 
too much to drink, and I know we talked too much. 
We became particularly hot upon some boorish sneer 
of Drummle's, to the effect that we were too free with 
our money. It led to my remarking, with more zeal 
than discretion, that it came with a bad grace from 
him, to whom Startop had lent money in my presence 
but a week or so before. 

"Well," retorted Drummle, "he'll be paid." 

"I don't mean to imply that he won't," said I, "but 
it might make you hold your tongue about us and our 
money, I should think." 

"You should think!" retorted Drummle. "Oh 
Lord!" 

"I dare say," I went on, meaning to be very severe, 
"that you wouldn't lend money to any of us if we 
wanted it." 

"You are right," said Drummle. "I wouldn't lend 
one of you a sixpence. I wouldn't lend anybody a 
sixpence." 

" Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, 
I should say." 

" You should say," repeated Drummle. " Oh Lord! " 
This was so very aggravating — the more especially as I 
VOL. i. 14 



210 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

found myself making no way against his surly obtuse- 
ness — that I said, disregarding Herbert's efforts to 
check me. 

" Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, 
I'll tell you what passed between Herbert here and me, 
when you borrowed that money." 

" I don't want to know what passed between Herbert 
there and you," growled Drummle. And I think he 
added in a lower growl, that we might both go to the 
devil and shake ourselves. 

" I'll tell you, however," said I, "whether you want 
to know or not. We said that as you put it into your 
pocket very glad to get it, you seemed to be immensely 
amused at his being so weak as to lend it." 

Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our 
faces, with his hands in his pockets and his round 
shoulders raised; plainly signifying that it was quite 
true, and that he despised us, as asses all. 

Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a 
much better grace than I had shown, and exhorted him 
to be a little more agreeable. Startop, being a lively 
bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact op- 
posite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as 
a direct personal affront. He now retorted in a coarse 
lumpish way, and Startop tried to turn the discussion 
aside with some small pleasantry that made us all 
laugh. Resenting this little success more than any- 
thing, Drummle, without any threat or warning, pulled 
his hands out of his pockets, dropped his round shoul- 
ders, swore, took up a large glass, and would have flung 
it at his adversary's head, but for our entertainer's dex- 
terously seizing it at the instant when it was raised ^or 
that purpose. 

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting 
down the glass, and hauling out his gold repeater by its 
massive chain, "I am exceedingly sorry to announce 
that it's half -past nine." 

On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to 
the street door, Startop was cheerily calling Drummle 
" old boy," as if nothing had happened. But the old 
boy was so far from responding, that he would not even 
walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way; so, 
Herbert and I, who remained in town, saw them going 
down the street on opposite sides; Startop leading, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 211 

and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the 
houses, much as he was wont to follow in his 
boat. 

As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave 
Herbert there for a moment, and run up-stairs again to 
say a word to my guardian. I found him in his dress- 
ing-room surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard 
at it, washing his hands of us. 

I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I 
was that anything disagreeable should have occurred, 
and that I hoped he would not blame me much. 

"Pooh!" said he, sluicing his face, and speaking 
through the water-drops; "its nothing, Pip. I like that 
Spider though." 

He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his 
head, and blowing, and towelling himself. 

"I am glad you like him, sir." said I — "but I 
don't." 

"No, no," my guardian assented; "don't have too 
much to do with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. 
But I like the fellow, Pip; he is one of the true sort. 
"Why, if I was a fortune-teller " 

Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye. 

" But I am not a fortune-teller," he said, letting his 
head drop into a festoon of towel, and towelling away 
at his own ears. "You know what I am, don't you ? 
Good night, Pip." 

" Good night, sir." 

In about a month after that, the Spider's time with 
Mr. Pocket was up for good, and, to the great relief of 
all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he went home to the 
family hole. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



" My Dear Mr. Pip, 

" I write this by request of Mr. Grargery, for to let yon know- 
that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be 
glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard's 
Hotel Tuesday morning at nine o'clock, when if not agreeable please 
leave word, Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We 



212 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

talk of you in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying 
and doing. If now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the 
love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from 

" Your ever obliged, and affectionate 

" Servant, 

"Biddy. 
11 P. S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He says 
you will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see 
him even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is 
a worthy worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last little 
sentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again what larks" 

I received this letter by post on Monday morning, and 
therefore its appointment was for next day. Let me 
confess exactly, with what feelings I looked forward to 
Joe's coming. 

Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so 
many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some 
mortification, and a keen sense of incongruity. If I 
could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly 
would have paid money. My greatest reassurance was, 
that he was coming to Barnard's Inn, not to Hammer- 
smith, and consequently would not fall in Bentley 
Drummle's way. I had little objection to his being seen 
by Herbert or his father, for both of whom L had a 
respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his 
being seen by Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So, 
throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses 
are usually committed for the sate of the people 
whom we most despise. 

I had begun to be always decorating the chambers 
in some quite unnecessary and inappropriate way or 
other, and very expensive those wrestles with Barnard 
proved to be. By this time, the rooms were vastly 
different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed 
the honour of occupying a few prominent pages in the 
books of a neighbouring upholsterer. I had got on so fast 
of late, that I had even started a boy in boots — top 
boots — in bondage and slavery to whom I might be 
said to pass my days. For, after I had made this* mon- 
ster (out of the refuse of my washerwoman's family) 
and had clothed him with a blue coat, canary waist- 
coat, white cravat^ creamy breeches, and the boots 
already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and 
a great deal to eat; and with both of those horrible 
requirements he haunted my existence. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 213 

This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty 
at eight on Tuesday morning in the hall (it was two 
feet square, as charged for floorcloth), and Herbert 
suggested certain things for breakfast that he thought 
Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him 
for being so interested and considerate, I had an odd 
half -provoked sense of suspicion upon me, that if Joe 
had Deen coming to see him, he wouldn't have been 
quite so brisk about it. 

However, I come into town on the Monday night to be 
ready for Joe, and I got up early in the morning, and 
caused the sitting-room and breakfast-table to assume 
their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately the 
morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have con- 
cealed the fact that Barnard was shedding sooty tears 
outside the window, like some weak giant of a Sweep. 

As the time approached I should have liked to run 
away, but the Avenger, pursuant to orders, was in the 
hall, and presently I heard Joe on the staircase. I knew 
it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming up-stairs 
— his state boots being always too big for him — and by 
the time it took him to read the names on the other 
floors in the course of his ascent. When at last he 
stopped outside our door, I could hear his finger tracing 
over the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards 
distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. 
Finally, he gave a faint single rap, and Pepper — such 
was the compromising name of the avenging boy — an- 
nounced "Mr. Gargery!" I thought he never would 
have done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone 
out to lift him off the mat, but at last he came in. 

"Joe, how are you, Joe?" 

"Pip, how air you, Pip?" 

With his good honest face all glowing and shining, 
and his hat put down on the floor between us, he caught 
both my hands and worked them straight up and down, 
as if I had been the last-patented Pump. 

" I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat." 

But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like 
a bird's nest with eggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting 
with that piece of property, and persisted in standing 
talking over it in a most uncomfortable way. 

"Which you have that growed," said Joe, " and that 
swelled, and that gentlef olked ; " Joe considered a little 



214 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

before he discovered this word ; "as to be sure you are 
a honour to your king and country." 

" And you, Joe, look wonderfully well." 

" Thank God/' said Joe, " I'm ekerval to most. And 
your sister, she's no worse than she were. And Biddy, 
she's ever right and ready. And all friends is no back- 
erder, if not no forarder. 'Ceptin' Wopsle; he's had a 
drop." 

All this time (still with both hands taking great care 
of the bird's nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and 
round the room, and round and round the flowered pat- 
tern of my dressing-gown. 

"Had a drop, Joe?" 

" Why yes," said Joe, lowering his voice, "he's left 
the Church and went into the playacting. Which the 
playacting have likeways brought him to London along 
with me. And his wish were/' said Joe, getting the 
bird's nest under his left arm for the moment, and grop- 
ing in it for an egg with his right; "if no offense, as I 
would 'and you that." 

I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the 
crumpled playbill of a small metropolitan theatre, an- 
nouncing the first appearance, in that very week, of 
"the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian re- 
nown, whose unique performance in the highest tragic 
walk of our National Bard has lately occasioned so great 
a sensation in local dramatic circles." 

" Were you at his performance, Joe?" I inquired. 

" I were," said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity. 

" Was there a great sensation? " 

" Why," said Joe, " yes, there certainly were a peck of 
orange peel. Partickler when he see the ghost. Though 
I put it to yourself, sir, whether it were calc'lated to 
keep a man up to his work with a good hart, to be con- 
tiniwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with 
'Amen!" A man may have had a misfortun' and 
been in the Church," said Joe, lowering his voice to an 
argumentative and feeling tone, " but that is no reason 
why you should put him out at such a time. Which I 
meantersay, if the ghost of a man's own father cannot 
be allowed to claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still 
more, when his mourning 'at is unfortunately made so 
small as that the weight of the black feathers brings it 
off, try to keep it on how you may." 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 215 

A ghost-seeing effect in Joe's own countenance in- 
formed me that Herbert had entered the room. So I 
presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his hand ; but 
Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird's nest. 

" Your servant, Sir," said Joe, " which I hope as you 
and Pip " — here his eye fell on the Avenger, who was 
putting some toast on table, and so plainly denoted 
an intention to make that young gentleman one of the 
family, that I frowned it down and confused him more 
— "I meantersay, you two gentlemen — which I hope as 
you gets your elths in this close spot? For the present 
may be a wery good inn according to London opinions," 
said Joe confidentially, "and I believe its character do 
stand i ; but I wouldn't keep a pig in it myself — not in 
the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to 
eat with a meller flavour on him." 

Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits 
of our dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown 
this tendency to call me "sir," Joe, being invited to sit 
down to table, looked all round the room for a suitable 
spot on which to deposit his hat — as if it were only on 
some few very rare substances in nature that it could 
find a resting-place — and ultimately stood it on an ex- 
treme corner of the chimney-piece, from which it ever 
afterwards fell off at intervals. 

"Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery ?" asked 
Herbert, who always presided of a morning. 

"Thankee, Sir," said Joe, stiff from head to foot, "I'll 
take whichever is most agreeable to yourself." 

"What do you say to coffee ?" 

"Thankee, Sir," returned Joe, evidently dispirited by 
the proposal, "since you are so kind as make chice of 
coffee, I will not run contrairy to your own opinions. 
But don't you never find it a little 'eating ? " 

" Say tea then," said Herbert, pouring it out. 

Here Joe's hat tumbled off the mantelpiece, and he 
started out of his chair and picked it up, and fitted it to 
the same exact spot. As if it were an absolute point of 
good breeding that it should tumble off again soon. 

" When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery ?" 

"Were it yesterday afternoon?" said Joe, after 
coughing behind his hand, as if he had had time to catch 
the whooping-cough since he came. "No it w-ere not. 
Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon" (with 



216 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

an appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict im- 
partiality). 

" Have you seen anything of London, yet ?" 

"Why, yes, Sir/' said Joe, "me and Wopsle went off 
straight to look at the Blacking Ware'us. But we didn't 
find that it come up to its likeness in the red bills at the 
shop doors; which I meantersay," added Joe, in an ex- 
planatory manner, "as it is there drawd too architec- 
tooralooral." 

I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word 
(mightily expressive to my mind of some architecture 
that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but for his attention 
being providentially attracted by his hat, which was 
toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him, a constant 
attention, and a quickness of eye and hand, very like 
that exacted by wicket-keeping. He made extraordinary 
play with it, and showed the greatest skill; now, rush- 
ing at it and catching it neatly as it dropped; now, 
merely stopping it midway, beating it up, and humour- 
ing it in various parts of the room and against a good 
deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall, before he 
felt it safe to close with it; finally splashing it into the 
slop-basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands 
upon it. 

As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were 
perplexing to reflect upon — insoluble mysteries both. 
Why should a man scrape himself to that extent, be- 
fore he could consider himself full dressed ? Why should 
he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for his 
holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable 
fits of meditation, with his fork midway between his 
plate and his mouth; had his eyes attracted in such 
strange directions; was afflicted with such remarkable 
coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much 
more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn't dropped 
it; that I was heartily glad when Herbert left us for the 
City. 

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to 
know that this was all my fault, and that if I had been 
easier with Joe, Joe would have been easier with me. 
I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him; 
in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my 
head. 

"Us two being now alone, Sir," began Joe. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 217 

'Joe/' I interrupted, pettishly, " how can you call me, 
Sir?" 

Joe looked at me for a single instant with something 
faintly like reproach. Utterly preposterous as his 
cravat was, and as his collars were, I was conscious of a 
sort of dignity in the look. 

"Us two being now alone,'] resumed Joe, "and me 
having the intentions and abilities to stay not many 
minutes more, I will now conclude — leastways begin — 
to mention what have led to my having had the present 
honour. For was it not," said Joe, with his old air of 
lucid exposition, "that my only wish were to be useful 
to you, I should not have had the honour of breaking 
wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen. " 

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made 
no remonstrance against this tone. 

"Well, Sir," pursued Joe, "this is how it were. I 
were at the Bargemen t'other night, Pip ; " whenever 
he subsided into affection, he called me Pip, and when- 
ever he relapsed into politeness he called me Sir; " when 
there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which 
that same indentical," said Joe, going down a new 
track, "do comb my 'air the wrong way sometimes, 
awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him 
which ever had your infant companionation, and were 
looked upon as a playfellow by yourself." 

" Nonsense. It was you, Joe." 

"Which I fully believed it were, Pip," said Joe, 
slightly tossing his head, " though it signify little now, 
Sir. Well, Pip ; this same identical, which his man- 
ners is given to blusterous, come to me at the Barge- 
men (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment 
to the working-man, Sir, and do not over stimilate), and 
his word were, € Joseph, Miss Havisham she wish to 
speak to you.' " 

"Miss Havisham, Joe?" 

" ' She wish,' were Pumblechook's word, ' to speak to 
you.' Joe sat and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. 

" Yes, Joe ? Go on, please." " 

" Next day, Sir," said Joe, looking at me as if I were 
a long way off, " having cleaned myself, I go and I see 
Miss A." 

" Miss A., Joe ? Miss Havisham ?" 

" Which I say. Sir," replied Joe, with an air of legal 










218 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

formality, as if he were making his will, " Miss A., or 
otherways Havisham. Her expression air then as fol- 
lering : ' Mr. Gargery. You air in correspondence with 
Mr. Pip ? ' Having had a letter from you, I were able 
to say ' I am. 7 (When I married your sister, Sir, I said 
* I will ; ' and when I answered your friend, Pip, I said 
'I am.') 'Would you tell him, then,' said she, 'that 
which Estella has come home, and would be glad to see 
him.'" 

I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one 
remote cause of its firing, may have been my conscious- 
ness that if I had known his errand, I should have given 
him more encouragement. 

" Biddy," pursued Joe, " when I got home and asked 
her fur to write the message to you, a little hung back. 
Biddy says, ' I know he will be very glad to have it by 
word of mouth, it is holiday -time, you want to see him, 
go!' I have now concluded, Sir," said Joe, rising from 
his chair, "and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever 
prospering to a greater and a greater heighth." 

" But you are not going now, Joe?" 

"Yes I am," said Joe. 

"But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?" 

" No I am not," said Joe. 

Our eyes met, and all the "Sir" melted out of that 
manly heart as he gave me his hand. 

" Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many 
partings welded together, as I may say, and one man's 
a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a gold- 
smith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions among such 
must come, and must be met as they come. If there's 
been any fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is 
not two figures to be together in London; nor yet any- 
wheres else but what is private, and beknown, and 
understood among friends. It ain't that I am proud, 
but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me 
no more in these clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm 
wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off th'meshes. You 
won't find half so much fault in me if you think of me in 
my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even 
my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, sup- 
posing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and 
put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the 
blacksmith, there, at the old anvil,in the old burnt apron, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 219 

sticking to the old work. I'm awful dull, but I hope I've 
beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so 
God bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, God bless you!" 
I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was 
a simple dignity in him. The fashion of his dress could 
no more come in its way when he spoke these words, 
than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched 
me gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as 
I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after 
him and looked for him in the neighbouring streets; but 
he was gone. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



IT was clear that I must repair to our town next day, 
and in the first flow of my repentance it was equally 
clear that I must stay at Joe's. But, when I had secured 
my box-place by to-morrow's coach and had been down 
to Mr. Pocket's and back, I was not by any means con- 
vinced on the last point, and began to invent reasons 
and make excuses for putting up at the Blue Boar. I 
should be an inconvenience at Joe's; I was not expected, 
and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from 
Miss Havisham's, and she was exacting and mightn't 
like it. All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to 
the self -swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat 
myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently 
take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, 
is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon 
on the spurious coin of my own make, as good money ! 
An obliging stranger, under pretence of compactly fold- 
ing up my bank-notes for security's sake, abstracts the 
notes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of 
hand to mine, when I fold up my own nutshells and 
pass them on myself as notes! 

Having settled that I must go the Blue Boar, my mind 
was much disturbed by indecision whether or no to take 
the Avenger. It was tempting to think of that expensive 
Mercenary publicly airing his boots in the archway of 
the Blue Boar's posting-yard: it was almost solemn to 
imagine him casually produced in the tailor's shop and 
confounding the disrespectful senses of Trabb's boy. 



220 GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 

On the other hand, Trabb's boy might worm himself 
into his intimacy and tell him things; or, reckless and 
desperate wretch as I knew he could be, might hoot him 
in the High-street. My patroness, too, might hear of 
him, and not approve. On the whole, I resolved to leave 
the Avenger behind. 

It was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my 
place, and, as winter had now come round, I should not 
arrive at my destination until two or three hours after 
dark. Our time of starting from the Cross Keys was 
two o'clock. I arrived on the ground with a quarter of 
an hour to spare, attended by the Avenger — if I may 
connect that expression with one who never attended on 
me if he could possibly help it. 

At that time it was customary to carry Convicts down 
to the dockyards by stage-coach. As I had often heard 
of them in the capacity of outside passengers, and had 
more than once seen them on the high road dangling 
their ironed legs over the coach roof, I had no cause to 
be surprised when Herbert, meeting me in the yard, 
came up and told me there were two convicts going 
down with me. But I had a reason that was an old 
reason now, for constitutionally faltering whenever I 
heard the word convict. 

"You don't mind them, Handel? " said Herbert. 

"Oh no!" 

" I thought you seemed as if you didn't like them? " 

" I can't pretend that I do like them, and I suppose 
you don't particularly. But I don't mind them." 

"See! There they are," said Herbert, "coming out 
of the Tap. What a degraded and vile sight it is! " 

They had been treating their guard, I suppose, for 
they had a gaoler with them, and all three came out 
wiping their mouths on their hands. The two convicts 
were handcuffed together, and had irons on their legs — 
irons of a pattern that I knew well. They wore the 
dress that I likewise knew well. Their keeper had a 
brace of pistols, and carried a thick-knobbed bludgeon 
under his arm; but he was on terms of good understand- 
ing with them, and stood, with them beside him, look- 
ing on at the putting-to of the horses, rather with an 
air as if the convicts were an interesting Exhibition not 
formally open at the moment, and he the Curator. One 
was a taller and stouter man than the other, and ap- 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 221 

peared as a matter of course, according to the mysterious 
ways of the world both convict and free, to have had 
alloted to him the smallest suit of clothes. His arms 
and legs were like great pincushions of those shapes, 
and his attire disguised him absurdly; but I knew his 
half-closed eye at one glance. There stood the man 
whom I had seen on the settle at the Three Jolly Barge- 
men on a Saturday night, and wiio had brought them 
down with his invisible gun ! 

It was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no 
more than if he had never seen me in his life. He 
looked across at me, and his eye appraised my watch- 
chain, and then he incidentally spat and said something 
to the other convict, and they laughed and slued them- 
selves round with a clink of their coupling manacle, 
and looked at something else. The great numbers on 
their backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse 
mangy ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower 
animals; their ironed legs, apologetically garlanded 
with pocket-handkerchiefs; and the way in which all 
present looked at them and kept from them; made them 
(as Herbert had said) a most disagreeable and degraded 
spectacle. 

But this was not the worst of it. It came out that the 
whole of the back of the coach had been taken by a 
family removing from London, and that there were no 

E laces for the two prisoners but on the seat in front, 
ehind the coachman. Hereupon, a choleric gentle- 
man, who had taken the fourth place on that seat, flew 
into a most violent passion, and said that it was a breach 
of contract to mix him up with such villainous company, 
and that it was poisonous and pernicious and infamous 
and shameful, and I don't know what else. At this 
time the coach was ready and the coachman impatient, 
and we were all preparing to get up, and the prisoners 
had come over with their keeper — bringing with them 
that curious flavour of bread poultice, baize, rope-yarn, 
and hearthstone, which attends the convict presence. 

" Don't take it so much amiss, sir," pleaded the 
keeper to the angry passenger; "I'll sit next you my- 
self. I'll put 'em on the outside of the row. They won't 
interfere with you, sir. You needn't know they're 
there." 

"And don't blame me," growled the convict I had 



222 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

recognised. " I don't want to go. Jam quite ready to 
stay behind. As fur as I am concerned any one's wel- 
come to my place." 

"Or mine/' said the other, gruffly. "I wouldn't have 
incommoded none of you, if I'd a had my way." Then, 
they both laughed, and began cracking nuts, and spit- 
ting the shells about. — As I really think I should have 
liked to do myself, if I had been in their place and so 
despised. 

At length, it was voted that there was no help for the 
angry gentleman, and that he must either go in his 
chance company or remain behind. So, he got into his 
place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into 
the place next him, and the convicts hauled themselves 
up as well as they could, and the convict I had recog- 
nised sat behind me with his breath on the hair of my 
head. 

" Good -by, Handel! " Herbert called out as we started. 
I thought what a blessed fortune it was, that he had 
found another name for me than Pip. 

It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt 
the convict's breathing, not only on the back of my 
head, but all along my spine. The sensation was like 
being touched in the marrow with some pungent and 
searching acid, and it set my very teeth on edge. He 
seemed to have more breathing business to do than 
another man, and to make more noise in doing it; and I 
was conscious of growing high-shouldered on one side, 
in my shrinking endeavours to fend him off. 

The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed 
the cold. It made us all lethargic before we had gone 
far, and when we had left the Half-way House behind, 
We habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I 
dozed off, myself, in considering the question whether 
I ought to restore a couple of pounds sterling to this 
creature before losing sight of him and how it could 
best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I were 
going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright 
and took the question up again. 

But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, 
since, although I could recognise nothing in the dark- 
ness and the fitful lights and shadows of our lamps, I 
traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that blew 
at us. Cowering forward for warmth and to make me 









GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 228 

a screen against the wind, the convicts were closer to 
me than before. The very first words I heard them 
interchange as I became conscious, were the words of 
my own thought, " Two One Pound notes." 

""How did he get 'em ?" said the convict I had never 
seen. 

" How should I know?" returned the other. "He had 
'em stowed away somehows. Giv him by friends, I 
expect." 

" I wish," said the other, with a bitter curse upon the 
cold, "that I had 'em here." 

"Two one pound notes, or friends?" 

" Two one pound notes. I'd sell all the friends I ever 
had, for one, and think it a blessed good bargain. Well? 
So he says ?" 

" So he says," resumed the convict I had recognised — 
"it was all said and done in half a minute, behind a 
pile of timber in the Dockyard — 'You're a going to be 
discharged?" Yes, I was. Would I find out that boy 
that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them 
two one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did." 

" More fool you," growled the other. "I'd have spent 
'em on a Man, in wittles and drink. He must have been 
a green one. Mean to say heknowed nothing of you?" 

" Not a ha'porth. Different gangs and different ships. 
He was tried again for prison breaking, and got made 
a Lifer." 

" And was that — Honour! — the only time you worked 
out, in this part of the country?" 

"The only time." 

" What might have been your opinion of the place? " 

" A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and 
work work, swamp, mist, and mudbank." 

They both execrated the place in very strong lan- 
guage, and gradually growled themselves out, and had 
nothing left to say. 

After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly 
have got down and been left in the solitude and dark- 
ness of the highway, but for feeling certain that the 
man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was 
not only so changed in the course of nature, but so 
differently dressed and so differently circumstanced, 
that it was not at all likely he could have known me 
without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our 



224 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

being together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to 
fill me with a dread that some other coincidence might 
at any moment connect me, in his hearing, with my 
name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as soon as 
we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. 
This device I executed successfully. My little port- 
manteau was in the boot under my feet; I had but to 
turn a hinge to get it out; I threw it down before me, got 
down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first 
stonos of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they 
went their way with the coach, and I knew at what point 
they would be spirited off to the river. In my fancy, I 
saw the boat with its convict crew waiting for them at 
the slime-washed stairs, — again heard the gruff "'Give 
way, you! " like an order to dogs — again saw the wicked 
Noah's Ark lying out on the black water. 

I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my 
fear was altogether undefined and vague, but there was 
great fear upon me. As I walked on to the hotel, I felt 
that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension 
of a painful or disagreeable recognition, made me 
tremble. I am confident that it took no distinctness of 
shape, and that it was the revival for a few minutes of 
the terror of childhood. 

The coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I 
had not only ordered my dinner there, but had sat down 
to it, before the waiter knew me. As soon as he had 
apologised for the remissness of his memory, he asked 
me if he should send Boots for Mr. Pumblechook? 

"No," said I, " certainly not." 

The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great 
Remonstrance from the Commercials, on the day when 
I was bound) appeared surprised, and took the earliest 
opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local news- 
paper so directly in my way, that I took it up and read 
this paragraph: 

" Our readers will learn, not altogether without inter- 
est, in reference to the recent romantic rise in fortune 
of a young artificer in iron of this neighbourhood (what 
a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as yet 
not universally acknowledged townsman Tooby, the 
poet of our columns!) that the youth's earliest patron, 
companion, and friend, was a highly-respected indi- 
vidual not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 225 

trade, and whose eminently convenient and commodi- 
ous business premises are situate within a hundred 
miles of the High-street. It is not wholly irrespective 
of our personal feelings that we record Him as the Men- 
tor of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know 
that our town produced the founder of the latter's 
fortunes. Does the thought-contracted brow of the 
local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire 
whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was 
the Blacksmith of Antwerp. Verb. Sap." 

I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, 
that if in the days of my prosperity I had gone to the 
North Pole, I should have met somebody there, wander- 
ing Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have told 
me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the 
founder of my fortunes. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



BETIMES in the morning I was up and out. It was 
too early yet to go to Miss Havisham's, so I loitered 
into the country on Miss Havisham's side of town — 
which was not Joe's side; I could go there to-morrow 
— thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant 
pictures of her plans for me. 

She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted 
me, and it could not fail to be her intention to bring us 
together. She reserved it for me to restore the desolate 
house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the 
clocks a going and the cold hearths a blazing, tear down 
the cobwebs, destroy the vermin — in short, do all the 
shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and 
marry the Princess. I had stopped to look at the house 
as I passed ; and its seared red brick walls, blocked 
windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks 
of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with 
sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, 
of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration of 
it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had 
taken such strong possession of me, though my fancy 
and my hope were so set upon her, though her influence 
vol. i. 15 



226 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

on my boyish life and character had been all powerful, 
I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with 
any attributes save those she possessed. I mention this 
in this place, of a fixed purpose, because it is the clue 
by which I am to be followed into my poor labyrinth. 
According to my experience, the conventional notion 
of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, 
that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved 
her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for 
all ; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, 
that I loved her against reason, against promise, against 
peace, against hope, against happiness, against all dis- 
couragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her 
none the less because I knew it, and it had no more in- 
fluence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly be- 
lieved her to be human perfection. 

I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at 
my old time. When I had rung at the bell with an un- 
steady hand, I turned my back upon the gate, while I 
tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my 
heart moderately quiet. I heard the side door open, 
and steps come across the court-yard ; but I pretended 
not to hear, even when the gate swung on its rusty 
hinges. 

Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and 
turned. I started much more naturally then, to find 
myself confronted by a man in a sober grey dress. The 
last man I should have expected to see in that place of 
porter at Miss Havisham's door. 

"Orlick!" 

" Ah, young master, there's more changes than yours. 
But come in, come in. It's opposed to my orders to hold 
the gate open." 

I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took 
the key out. "Yes!" said he, facing round, after 
doggedly preceding me a few steps towards the house. 
"Here I am!" 

" How did you come here ? " 

"I come here," he retorted, "on my legs. I had my 
box brought alongside me in a barrow." 

" Are you here for good? " 

"I ain't here for harm, young master, I suppose." 

I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain 
the retort in my mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 227 

glance from the pavement, up my legs and arms to my 
face. 

" Then you have left the forge ? " I said. 

"Do this look like a forge ?" replied Orlick, sending 
his glance all round him with an air of injury. " Now, 
do it look like it ?" 

I asked him how long he had left Gargery's forge. 

" One day is so like another here," he replied, that 
I don't know without casting it up. However, I come 
here some time since you left." 

" I could have told you that, Orlick." 

" Ah ! " said he, dryly. " But then you've got to be 
a scholar," 

By this time we had come to the house, where I found 
his room to be one just within the side door, with a 
little window in it looking on the court-yard. In its 
small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place 
usually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys 
were hanging on the wall, to which he now added the 
gate key ; and his patch-work covered bed was in a 
little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly 
confined and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dor- 
mouse: while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow 
of a corner by the window, looked like the human dor- 
mouse for whom it was fitted up — as indeed he was. 

"I never saw this room before," I remarked; "but 
there used to be no Porter here." 

" No, said he, " not till it got about that there was no 
protection on the premises, and it come to be considered 
dangerous, with convicts and Tag and Rag and Bobtail 
going up and down. And then I was recommended to 
the place as a man who could give another man as 
good as he brought, and I took it. It's easier than bel- 
lowsing and hammering! — That's loaded, that is." 

My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass-bound 
stock over the chimney-piece, and his eye had followed 
mine. 

"Well," said I, not desirous of more conversation, 
" shall I go up to Miss Havisham ?" 

"Burn me, if I know!" he retorted first stretching 
himself and then shaking himself; "my orders ends 
here, young master. I give this here bell a rap with 
this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till 
you meet somebody." 



228 G&EAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"I am expected, I believe ? " 
"Burn me twice over, if I can say !" said he. 
Upon that, I turned down the long passage which 
I had first trodden in my thick boots, and he made his 
bell sound. At the end of the passage, while the bell 
was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket : who 
appeared to have now become constitutionally green 
and yellow by reason of me. 

" Oh! " said she. " You, is it, Mr. Pip?" 
" It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. 
Pocket and family are all well." 

"Are they any wiser?" said Sarah, with a dismal 
shake of the head ; " they had better be wiser, than 
well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know your way, 
sir?" 

Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, 
many a time. I ascended it now, in lighter boots than 
of yore, and tapped in my old way at the door of Miss 
Havisham's room. 

" Pip's rap," I heard her say, immediately ; " come in, 
Pip." 

She was in her chair near the old table, in the old 
dress, with her two hands crossed on her stick, her chin 
resting on them, and her eyes on the fire. Sitting near 
her, with the white shoe, that had never been worn, in 
her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an 
elegant lady whom I had never seen. 

" Come in, Pip," Miss Havisham continued to mutter, 
without looking round or up; "come in, Pip, how do 
you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I were a queen, 
eh? Well?" 

She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, 
and repeated in a grimly playful manner, 

"Well?" 

"I heard, Miss Havisham," said I, rather at a loss, 
"that you were so kind as to wish me to come and see 
you, and I came directly." 

"Well?" 

The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her 
eyes and looked archly at me, and then I saw that the 
eyes were Estella's eyes. But she was so much changed, 
was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, 
in all things winning admiration had made such wonder- 
ful advance, that I seemed to have made none. I fan- 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 229 



cied, as I looked at her, that I slipped hopelessly back 
into the coarse and common boy again. O the sense of 
distance and disparity that came upon me, and the in- 
accessibility that came about her ! 

She gave me her hand. I stammered something about 
the pleasure I felt in seeing her again, and about my 
having looked forward to it for a long, long time. 

"Do you find her much changed, Pip?" asked Miss 
Havisham, with her greedy look, and striking her stick 
upon a chair that stood between them, as a sign to me 
to sit down there. 

" When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there 
was nothing of Estella in the face or figure ; but now it 
all settles down so curiously into the old — -" 

" What ? You are not going to say into the old 
Estella? " Miss Havisham interrupted. " She was proud 
and .insulting, and you wanted to go away from her. 
Don't you remember?" 

I said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I 
knew no better then, and the like. Estella smiled with 
perfect composure, and said she had no doubt of my 
having been quite right, and of her having been very 
disagreeable. 

" Is he changed?" Miss Havisham asked her. 

" Very much," said Estella, looking at .me*. 

"Less coarse and common?" said Miss Havisham, 
playing with Estella' s hair. 

Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, 
and laughed again, and looked at me, and put the shoe 
down. She treated me as a boy still, but she lured 
me on. 

We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange in- 
fluences which had so wrought upon me, and I learnt 
that she had but just come home from France, and that 
she was going to London. Proud and wilful as of old, 
she had brought those qualities into such subjection to 
her beauty that it was impossible and out of nature — or 
I thought so— to separate them from her beauty. Truly 
it was impossible to dissociate her presence from all 
those wretched hankerings after money and gentility 
that had disturbed my boyhood — from all those ill-regu- 
lated aspirations that had first made me ashamed of 
home and Joe — from all those visions that had raised 
her face in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on 



230 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

the anvil, extracted it from the darkness of night to look 
in at the wooden window of the forge and flit away. In 
a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the 
past or in the present,f rom the innermost life of my life. 

It was settled that I should stay there all the rest of 
the day, and return to the hotel at night, and to London 
to-morrow. When we had conversed for a while, Miss 
Havisham sent us two out to walk in the neglected 
garden : on our coming in by-and-by, she said, I should 
wheel her about a little, as in times of yore. 

So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate 
through which I had strayed to my encounter with the 
pale young gentleman, now Herbert ; I, trembling in 
spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress ; she, 
quite composed and most decidedly not worshipping the 
hem of mine. As we drew near to the place of en- 
counter, she stopped and said : 

"I must have been a singular little creature to hide 
and see that fight that day: but I did, and I enjoyed it 
very much." 

"You rewarded me very much." 

"Did I?" she replied, in an incidental and forgetful 
way. "I remember I entertained a great objection to 
your adversary, because I took it ill that he should be 
brought here to pester me with his company." 

" He and I are great friends now." 

"Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read 
with his father?" 

"Yes." 

I made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed 
to have a boyish look, and she already treated me more 
than enough like a boy. 

"Since your change of fortune and prospects, you 
have changed your companions," said Estella. 

" Naturally," said I. 

" And necessarily," she added in a haughty tone; 
" what was fit company for you once, would be quite 
unfit company for you now." 

In my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had 
any lingering intention left, of going to see Joe; but if I 
had, this observation put it to flight. 

" You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in 
those times?" said Estella, with a slight wave of her 
hand, signifying in the fighting times. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 231 

"Not the least. " 

The air of completeness and superiority with which 
she walked at my side, and the air of youthfulness and 
submission with which I walked at hers, made a con- 
trast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me 
more than it did, if I had not regarded myself as elicit- 
ing it by being so set apart for her and assigned to her. 

The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking 
in with ease, and after we had made the round of it 
twice or thrice, we came out again into the brewery 
yard. I showed her to a nicety where I had seen her 
walking on the casks, that first old day, and she said 
with a cold and careless look in that direction, " Did I?" 
I reminded her where she had come out of the house 
and given me my meat and drink, and she said, " I don't 
remember." " Not remember that you made me cry? " 
said I. " No," said she, and shook her head and looked 
about her. I verily believe that her not remembering 
and not minding in the least made me cry again, in- 
wardly — and that is the sharpest crying of all. 

"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me 
as a brilliant and beautiful woman might, " that I have 
no heart — if that has anything to do with my memory." 

I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the 
liberty of doubting that. That I knew better. That 
there could be no such beauty without it. 

"Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I 
have no doubt," said Estella, "and of course, if it 
ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know 
what I mean. I have no softness there, no — sympathy 
— sentiment — nonsense. " 

What ivas it that was borne in upon my mind when 
she stood still and looked attentively at me? Anything 
that I had seen in Miss Havisham? No. In some of 
her looks and gestures there was that tinge of resem- 
blance to Miss Havisham which may often be noticed 
to have been acquired by children, from grown persons 
with whom they have been much associated and 
secluded, and which, when childhood is past, will pro- 
duce a remarkable occasional likeness of expression 
between faces that are otherwise quite different. And 
yet I could not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked 
again, and though she was still looking at me, the sug- 
gestion was gone. 



232 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

What was it? 

" I am serious/' said Estella, not so much with a frown 
(for her brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her 
face; " if we are to be thrown much together, you had 
better believe it at once. No!" imperiously stopping 
me as I opened my lips. " I have not bestowed my ten- 
derness anywhere. I have never had any such thing." 

In another moment we were in the brewery so long 
disused, and she pointed to the high gallery where I had 
seen her going out on that same first day, and told me 
she remembered to have been up there, and to have seen 
me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her 
white hand, again the same dim suggestion that I could 
not possibly grasp, crossed me. My involuntary start 
occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly 
the ghost passed once more and was gone. 

"What was.it ?" 

"What is the matter?" asked Estella. "Are you 
scared again ? " 

" I should be, if I believed what you said just now," 
I replied, to turn it off. 

" Then you don't ? Very well. It is said, at any 
rate. Miss Havisham will soon be expecting you at 
your old post, though I think that might be laid aside 
now, with other old belongings. Let us make one 
more round of the garden, and then go in. Come ! You 
shall not shed tears for my cruelty to-day; you shall be 
my Page, and give me your shoulder." 

Her handsome 'dress had trailed upon the ground. She 
held it in one hand now, and with the other lightly 
touched my shoulder as we walked. We walked round 
the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in 
bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed 
in the chinks of the old wall had been the most precious 
flowers that ever grew, it could not have been more 
cherished in my remembrance. 

There was no discrepancy of years between us, to re- 
move her far from me; we were of nearly the same age, 
though of course the age told for more in her case than 
in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her beauty 
and her manner gave her tormented me in the midst of 
my delight, and at the height of the assurance I felt 
that our patroness had chosen us for one another. 
Wretched boy! 

At last we went back into the house, and there I • 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 233 



heard, with surprise, that my guardian had come down 
to see Miss Havisham on business, and would come 
back to dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers 
in the room where the mouldering table was spread, 
had been lighted while we were out, and Miss Havi- 
sham was in her chair and waiting for me. 

It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, 
when we began the old slow circuit round about the 
ashes of the bridal feast. But, in the funeral room, 
with that figure of the grave fallen back in the chair 
fixing its eyes upon her, Estella looked more bright 
and beautiful than before, and I was under stronger 
enchantment. 

The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour 
drew close at hand, and Estella left us to prepare her- 
self. We had stopped near the centre of the long table, 
and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms 
stretched out of the chair, rested that clenched hand 
upon the yellow cloth. As Estella looked back over 
her shoulder before going out at the door, Miss Havi- 
sham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous intensity 
that was of its kind quite dreadful. 

Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she 
turned to me and said in a whisper : 

"Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you 
admire her ? " 

"Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham." 

She drew her arm round my neck, and drew my head 
close down to hers as she sat in the chair. " Love her, 
love her, love her ! How does she use you ? " 

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so 
difficult a question at all), she repeated, " Love her, love 
her, love her ! If she favoursyou, love her. If she 
wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces 
— and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper 
— love her, love her, love her ! " 

Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was 
joined to her utterance of these words. I could feel 
the muscles of the thin arm round my neck, swell with 
the vehemence that possessed her. 

"Hear me, Pip ! I adopted her to be loved. I bred 
her and educated her to be loved. I developed her into 
what she is, that she might be loved. Love her ! " 

She said the word often enough, and there could be 






234 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

no doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often re- 
peated word had been hate instead of love — despair — 
revenge — dire death — it could not have sounded from 
her lips more like a curse. 

" I'll tell you/' said she, in the same hurried passion- 
ate whisper, " what real love is. It is blind devotion, 
unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust 
and belief against yourself and against the whole world, 
giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter — as I 
did ! " 

When she came to that, and to a wild cry that fol- 
lowed that, I caught her round the waist. For she 
rose up in the chair, in her shroud of a dress, and 
struck at the air as if she would as soon have struck 
herself against the wall and fallen dead. 

All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down 
into her chair, I was conscious of a scent that I knew, 
and turning, saw my guardian in the room. 

He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I 
think) a pocket-handkerchief of rich silk and of im- 
posing proportions, which was of great value to him in 
his profession. I have seen him so terrify a client or a 
witness by ceremoniously unfolding this pocket-hand- 
kerchief as if he were immediately going to blow his 
nose, and then pausing, as if he knew he should not 
have time to do it, before such client or witness com- 
mitted himself, that the self -committal has followed 
directly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw him 
in the room he had this expressive pocket-handkerchief 
in both hands, and was looking at us. On meeting my 
eye, he said plainly by a momentary and silent pause 
in that attitude, "Indeed? Singular!" and then put 
the handkerchief to its right use with wonderful effect. 

Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was 
(like everybody else) afraid of him. She made a strong 
attempt to compose herself, and stammered that he 
was as punctual as ever. 

" As punctual as ever," he repeated, coming up to us. 
("How do you do, Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss 
Havisham? Once round?) And so you are here, Pip? " 

I told him when I had arrived; and how Miss Havi- 
sham wished me to come and see Estella. To which 
he replied, "Ah! Very fine young lady!" Then he 
pushed Miss Havisham in her chair before him, with 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 235 

one of his large hands, and put the other in his trousers- 
pocket as if the pocket were full of secrets. 

"Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella 
before?" said he, when he came to a stop. 

"How often?" 

"Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?" 

" Oh ! Certainly not so many." 

"Twice?" 

" Jaggers," interposed Miss Havisham, much to my 
relief ; " leave my Pip alone, and go with him to your 
dinner." 

He complied, and we groped our way down the dark 
stairs together. While we were still on our way to 
those detached apartments across the paved yard at 
the back, he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havi- 
sham eat and drink; offering me a breadth of choice, 
as usual, between a hundred times and once. 

I considered, and said, "Never." 

" And never will, Pip," he retorted, with a frowning 
smile. " She has never allowed herself to be seen doing 
either since she lived this present life of hers. She 
wanders about in the night, and then lay hands on such 
food as she takes." 

" Pray, sir," said I, " may I ask you a question? " 

" You may," said he, "and I may decline to answer 
it. Put your question." 

" Estella' s name. Is it Havisham or ?" I had 

nothing to add. 

"Or what? "said he. 

"Is it Havisham?" 

" It is Havisham." 

This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and 
Sarah Pocket awaited us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Es- 
tella sat opposite to him, I faced my green and yellow 
friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a 
maid servant whom I had never seen in all my comings 
and goings, but who, for anything I know, had been in 
that mysterious house the whole time. After dinner a 
bottle of choice old port was placed before my guardian 
(he was evidently well acquainted with the vintage), and 
the two ladies left us. 

Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. 
Jaggers under that roof I never saw elsewhere even in 
him. He kept his very looks to himself, and scarcely di- 



230 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

rected his eyes to Estella's face once during dinner. 
When she spoke to him, he listened, and in due course 
answered, but never looked at her, that I could see. On 
the other hand, she often looked at him, with interest 
and curiosity, if not distrust, but his face never showed 
the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took a 
dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yel- 
lower, by often referring in conversation with me to 
my expectations: but here, again, he showed no con- 
sciousness, and even made it appear that he extorted — 
and even did extort, though I don't know how — those 
references out of my innocent self. 

And when he and I were left alone together, he sat 
with an air upon him of general lying by in conse- 
quence of information he possessed, that really was too 
much for me. He cross-examined his very wine when 
he had nothing else in hand. He held it between 
himself and the candle, tasted the port, rolled it in 
his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his glass again, 
smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and cross- 
examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if 
I had known the wine to be telling him something to 
my disadvantage. Three or four times I feebly thought 
I would start conversation; but whenever he saw me 
going to ask him anything he looked at me with his 
glass in his hand, and rolling his wine about in his 
mouth, as if requesting me to take notice that it was 
of no use, for he couldn't answer. 

I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of 
me involved her in the danger of being goaded to mad- 
ness, and perhaps tearing off her cap — which was a very 
hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop — and 
strewing the ground with her hair — which assuredly 
had never grown on her head. She did not appear 
when we afterwards went up to Miss Havisham's room, 
and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss 
Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the m ost 
beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into Estella's 
hair, and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even 
my guardian look at her from under his thick eye- 
brows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was 
before him, with those rich flushes of glitter and colour 
in it. 

Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 237 

into custody, and came out with mean little cards at 
the ends of hands, before which the glory of our Kings 
and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of the 
feeling that I had, respecting his looking at us person- 
ally in the light of three very obvious and poor riddles 
that he had found out long ago. What I suffered from, 
was the incompatibility between his cold presence and 
my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I 
could never bear to speak to him about her, that I knew 
I could never bear to hear him creak his boots at her, 
that I knew I could never bear to see him wash iiis 
hands of her; it was that my admiration should be 
within a foot or two of him — it was, that my feelings 
should be in the same place with him — that was the 
agonising circumstance. 

We played until nine o'clock, and then it was arranged 
that when Estella came to London I should be fore- 
warned of her coming and should meet her at the 
coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her 
and left her. 

My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. 
Far into the night, Miss Havisham's words, "Love her, 
love her, love her! " sounded in my ears. I adapted 
them for my own repetition, and said to my pillow, "I 
love her, I love her, I love her! " hundreds of times. 
Then, a burst of gratitude came upon me, that she 
should be destined for me, once the blacksmith's boy. 
Then, I thought if she were, as I feared, by no means 
rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would 
she begin to be interested in me? When should I 
awaken the heart within her, that was mute and sleep- 
ing now? 

Ah me ! I thought those were high and great emotions. 
But I never thought there was anything low and small 
in my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would 
be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and 
Joe had brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon 
dried, God forgive me! soon dried. 



238 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A FTER well considering the matter while I was dress- 
f\ ing at the Blue Boar in the morning, I resolved to 
tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick's being the right 
• sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham's. 
" Why, of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip/' 
said my guardian, comfortably satisfied beforehand on 
the general head, " because the man who fills the post 
of trust never is the right sort of man." It seemed 
quite to put him in spirits to find that this par- 
ticular post was not exceptionally held by the right sort 
of man, and he listened in a satisfied manner while I 
told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. " Very good, 
Pip," he observed, when I had concluded, " I'll go round 
presently, and pay our friend off." Rather alarmed by 
this summary action, I was for a little delay, and even 
hinted that our friend himself might be difficult to 
deal with. " Oh no he won't," said my guardian, 
making his pocket-handkerchief-point with perfect 
confidence; " I should like to see him argue the ques- 
tion with me." 

As we were going back together to London by the 
mid-day coach, and as I breakfasted under such terrors 
of Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold my cup, this 
gave me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a 
walk, and that I would go on along the London-road 
while Mr. Jaggers was occupied, if he would let the 
coachman know that I would get into my place when 
overtaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the Blue Boar 
immediately after breakfast. By then making a loop 
of about a couple of miles into the open country at the 
back of Pumblechook's premises, I got round into the 
High-street again, a little beyond that pitfall, and felt 
myself in comparative security. 

It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once 
more, and it was not disagreeable to be here and there 
suddenly recognised and stared after. One or two of 
the tradespeople even darted out of their shops 
and went a little way down the street before me, that 
they might turn, as if they had forgotten something, 
and pass me face to face — on which occasions I don't 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 239 

know whether they or I made the worse pretence; 
they of not doing it, or I of not seeing it. Still my 
position was a distinguished one, and I was not at all 
dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the way of 
that unlimited Miscreant, Trabb's boy. 

Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of 
my progress, I beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing 
himself with an empty blue bag. Deeming that a 
serene and unconscious contemplation of him would 
best beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his 
evil mind, I advanced with that expression of counte- 
nance, and was congratulating myself on my success, 
when suddenly the knees of Trabb's boy smote together, 
his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently 
in every limb, staggered out into the road, and crying 
to the populace, " Hold me! I'm so frightened ! " feigned 
to be in a paroxysm of terror and contrition, occasioned 
by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed him his 
teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark 
of extreme humiliation, he prostrated himself in the 
dust. 

This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. 
I had not advanced another two hundred yards when, 
to my inexpressible terror, amazement, and indignation, 
I again beheld Trabb's boy approaching. He was com- 
ing round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung 
over his shoulder, honest industry beamed in his eyes, 
a determination to proceed to Trabb's with cheerful 
briskness was indicated in his gait. With a shock he 
became aware of me, and was severely visited as be- 
fore ; but this time his motion was rotatory, and he 
staggered round and round me with knees more afflicted, 
and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. 
His sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a 
knot of spectators, and I felt utterly confounded. 

I had not got as much further down the street as the 
post-office, when I again beheld Trabb's boy shooting 
round by a back way. This time, he was entirely 
changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my 
great-coat, and was strutting along the pavement to- 
wards me on the opposite side of the street, attended 
by a company of delighted young friends to whom he 
from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, 
"Don't know yah!" Words cannot state the amount 



240 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb's 
boy, when passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt- 
collar, twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and 
smirked extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and 
body, and drawling to his attendants, " Dont know 
yah, don't know yah, pon my soul don't know yah!'' 
The disgrace attendant on his immediately afterwards 
taking to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge 
with crows as from an exceedingly dejected fowl who 
had known me when I was a blacksmith, culminated 
the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to 
speak, ejected by it into the open country. 

But unless I had taken the life of Trabb's boy on that 
occasion, I really do not even now see what I could 
have done save endure. To have struggled with him in 
the street, or to have exacted any lower recompense 
from him than his heart's best blood, would have been 
futile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom 
no man could hurt ; an invulnerable and dodging ser- 
pent, who, when chased into a corner, flew out again 
between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote, 
however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that 
Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one who could 
so far forget what he owed to the best interests of 
society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing in 
every respectable mind. 

The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due 
time, and I took my box-seat again, and arrived in 
London safe — but not sound, for my heart was 
gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish 
and barrel of oysters to Joe (as reparation for not 
having gone myself) and then went on to Barnard's 
Inn. 

I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted 
to welcome me back. Having despatched the Avenger 
to the coffee-house for an addition to the dinner, I felt 
that I must open my breast that very evening to my 
friend and chum. As confidence was out of the ques- 
tion with the Avenger in the hall, which could merely 
be regarded in the light of an rnte-chamber to the key- 
hole, I sent him to the Play. A better proof of the 
severity of my bondage to that taskmaster could 
scarcely be afforded than the degrading shifts to which 
I was constantly driven to find him employment. So 




J AGGERS. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 241 

mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde 
Park-corner to see what o'clock it was. 

Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the 
fender, I said to Herbert, "My dear Herbert, I have 
something very particular to tell you." 

" My dear Handel," he returned, "I shall esteem and 
respect your confidence." 

" It concerns myself, Herbert," said I, "and one other 
person." 

Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his 
head on one side, and having looked at it in vain for 
some time, looked at me because I didn't go on. 

" Herbert," said I. laying my hand upon his knee. " I 
love — I adore — Estella." 

Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy 
matter-of-course way. "Exactly. Well?" 

" Well, Herbert ? Is that all you say ? Well ? " 

"What next, I mean ?" said Herbert. "Of course I 
know that." 
" How do you know it ?" said I. 

" How do I know it, Handel ? Why, from you." 

" I never told you." 

" Told me ! You have never told me when you have 
got your hair cut, but I have had senses to perceive it. 
You have always adored her, ever since I have known 
you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau 
here, together. Told me ! Why, you have always told 
me all day long. When you told me your own story, 
you told me plainly that you began adoring her the 
first time you saw her, when you were very young 
indeed." 

" Very well, then," said I, to whom this was a new 
and not unwelcome light, " I have never left off adoring 
her. And she has come back, a most beautiful and 
most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And 
if I adored her before, I now doubly adore her." 

"Lucky for you then, Handel," said Herbert, "that 
you are picked out for her and allotted to her. Without 
encroaching on forbidden ground, we may venture to 
say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of 
that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella's views on 
the adoration question ? " 

I shook my head gloomily. "Oh ! She is thousands 
of miles away from me," said I. 
vol. t. 16 



242 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"Patience, my dear Handel : time enough, time 
enough. But you have something more to say ? " 

"I am ashamed to say it," I returned, "and yet it's 
no worse to say it than to think it. You call me a lucky 
fellow. Of course, I am. I was a blacksmith's boy but 
yesterday; I am — what shall I say I am — to-day ? " 

" Say, a good fellow, if you want a phrase," returned 
Herbert, smiling, and clapping his hand on the back of 
mine : " a good fellow, with impetuosity and hesitation, 
boldness and diffidence, action and dreaming, curiously 
mixed in him." 

I stopped for a moment to consider whether there 
really was this mixture in my character. On the whole, 
I by no means recognised the analysis, but thought it 
not worth disputing. 

" When I ask what ± am to call myself to-day, Her- 
bert," I went on, " I suggest what I have in my thoughts. 
You say I am lucky. I know I have done nothing to 
raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised 
me; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think 
of Estella " 

(" And when don't you, you know!" Herbert threw 
in, with his eyes on the fire; which I thought kind and 
sympathetic of him.) 

" — Then, my dear Herbert I cannot tell you how de- 
pendent and uncertain I feel, and how exposed to 
hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden ground, as 
you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy 
of one person (naming no person) all my expectations 
depend. And at the best, how indefinite and unsatis- 
factory, only to know so vaguely what they are ! " In 
saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always 
been there, more or less, though no doubt most since 
yesterday. 

"Now, Handel," Herbert replied, in his gay hopeful 
way, "it seems to me that in the despondency of the 
tender passion, we are looking into our gift-horse's 
mouth with a magnifying glass. Likewise, it seems to 
me that, concentrating our attention on the examina- 
tion, we altogether overlook one of the best points of 
the animal. Didn't you tell me that your guardian, Mr. 
Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were not 
endowed with expectations only ? And even if he 
had not told you so— though that is a very large If, I 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 243 

grant — could you believe that of all men in London, 
Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations 
towards you unless he were sure of his ground ? " 

I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I 
said it (people often do so, in such cases) like a rather 
reluctant concession to truth and justice; — as if I wanted 
to deny it ! 

"I should think it was a strong point," said Herbert, 
"and I should think you would be puzzled to imagine 
a stronger; as to the rest, you must bide your guar- 
dian's time, and he must bide his client's time. You'l 
be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and 
then perhaps you'll get some further enlightenment. 
At all events, you'll be nearer getting it, for it must 
come at last." 

"What a hopeful disposition you have!" said I, 
gratefully admiring his cheery ways. 

"I ought to have," said Herbert, "for I have not 
much else. I must acknowledge, by-the-by, that the 
good sense of what I have just said is not my own, but 
my father's. The only remark I ever heard him make 
on your story, was the final one : ' The thing is settled 
and done, or Mr. Jaggers would not be in it.' And now 
before I say anything more about my father, or my 
father's son, and repay confidence with confidence, I 
want to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for 
a moment — positively repulsive." 

" You won't succeed," said I. 

"Oh yes I shall! "said he. "One, two, three, and 
now I am in for it. Handel, my good fellow;" though 
he spoke in this light tone, he was very much in earnest: 
" I have been thinking since we have been talking with 
our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a 
condition of your inheritance, if she was never referred 
to by your guardian. As I am right in so understand- 
ing what you have told me, as that he never referred to 
her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even 
hinted, for instance, that your patron might have views 
as to your marriage ultimately?" 

"Never." 

" Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of 
sour grapes, upon my soul and honour! Not being 
bound to her, can you not detach yourself from her? — 
I told you I should be disagreeable." 



244 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, 
like the old marsh winds coming up from the sea, a 
feeling like that which had subdued me on the morn- 
ing when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly 
rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger- 
post, smote upon my heart again. There was silence 
between us for a little while. 

"Yes; but my dear Handel/' Herbert went on, as if 
we had been talking, instead of silent, "it's having 
been so strongly rooted in the breast of a boy whom 
nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it 
very serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of 
Miss Havisham. Think of what she is herself (now I 
am repulsive and you abominate me). This may lead 
to miserable things." 

" I know it, Herbert," said I, with my head still 
turned away, " but I can't help it." 

"You can't detach yourself?" 

" No. Impossible ! " 

"You can't try, Handel?" 

"No. Impossible!" 

" Well! " said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake 
as if he had been asleep, and stirring the fire; "now 
I'll endeavour to make myself agreeable again! " 

So, he went round the room and shook the curtains 
out, put the chairs in their places, tidied the books and 
so forth that were lying about, looked into the hall, 
peeped into the letter-box, shut the door, and then came 
back to his chair by the fire : when he sat down, nursing 
his left leg in both arms. 

"I was going to say a word or two, Handel, con- 
cerning my father and my father's son. I am afraid it 
is scarcely necessary for my father's son to remark that 
my father's establishment is not particularly brilliant 
in its housekeeping." 

"There is always plenty, Herbert," said I: to say 
something encouraging. 

"Oh yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with 
the strongest approval, and so does the marine store- 
shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel, for the sub- 
ject is grave enough, you know how it is, as well as I 
do. I suppose there was a time once, when my father 
had not given matters up; but if ever there was, the 
time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever had an 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 245 

opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the 
country, that the children of not exactly suitable mar- 
riages, are always most particularly anxious to be 
married?" 

This was such a singular question, that I asked him 
in return, " Is it so? " 

"I don't know/' said Herbert; " that's what I want 
to know. Because it is decidedly the case with us. My 
poor sister Charlotte who was next me and died before 
she was fourteen, was a striking example. Little Jane 
is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially estab- 
lished, you might suppose her to have passed her short 
existence in the perpetual contemplation of domestic 
bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already made ar- 
rangements for his union with a suitable young per- 
son at Kew. And indeed, I think we are all engaged, 
except the baby." 

"Then you are?" said I. 

" I am," said Herbert; " but it's a secret." 

I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged 
to be favoured with further particulars. He had spoken 
so sensibly and feelingly of my weakness, that I wanted 
to know something about his strength. 

"May I ask the name?" I said. 

" Name of Clara," said Herbert. 

"Live in London?" 

"Yes, Perhaps I ought to mention," said Herbert, 
who had become curiously crestfallen and meek, since 
we entered on the interesting theme, "that she is rather 
below my mother's nonsensical family notions. Her 
father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. 
I think he was a species of purser. 

"What is he now?" said I. 

" He's an invalid now," replied Herbert. 

" Living on ? " 

"On the first floor," said Herbert. Which was not 
at all what I meant, for I had intended my question to 
apply to his means. " I have never seen him, for he has 
always kept his room overhead, since I have known 
Clara. But I have heard him constantly. He makes 
tremendous rows — roars, and pegs at the floor with 
some frightful instrument." In looking at me and then 
laughing heartily, Herbert for the time recovered his 
usual lively manner. 



246 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" Don't you expect to see him?" said I. 

"Oh yes, I constantly expect to see him/' returned 
Herbert, "because I never hear him, without expecting 
him to come tumbling through the ceiling. But I don't 
know how long the rafters may hold." 

When he had once more laughed heartily, he be- 
came meek again, and told me that the moment he be- 
gan to realise Capital, it was his intention to marry 
this young lady. He added as a self-evident proposi- 
tion, engendering low spirits, "But you can't marry, 
you know, while you're looking about you." 

As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a 
difficult vision to realise this same Capital sometimes 
was, I put my hands in my pockets. A folded piece of 
paper in one of them attracting my attention, I opened 
it and found it to be the play-bill I had received from 
Joe, relative to the celebrated provincial amateur of 
Roscian renown. "And bless my heart," I involun- 
tarily added aloud, "it's to-night!" 

This changed the subject in an instant, and made us 
hurriedly resolve to go to the play. So, when I had 
pledged myself to comfort and abet Herbert in the 
affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable 
means, and when Herbert had told me that his affianced 
already knew me by reputation and that I should be 
presented to her, and when we had warmly shaken 
hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our 
candles, made up our fire, locked our door, and issued 
forth in quest of Mr. Wopsle and Denmark. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



ON our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and 
queen of that country elevated in two arm-chairs on 
a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The whole of the 
Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a 
noble boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic an- 
cestor, a venerable Peer with a dirty face who seemed 
to have risen from the people late in life, and the Danish 
chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white 
silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine ap- 
pearance. My gifted townsman stood gloomily apart, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 247 

with folded arms, and I could have wished that his 
curls and forehead had been more probable. 

Several curious little circumstances transpired as the 
action proceeded. The late king of the country not 
only appeared to have been troubled with a cough at 
the time of his decease, but to have taken it with him 
to the tomb, and to have brought it back. The royal 
phantom also carried a ghostly manuscript round its 
truncheon, to which it had the appearance of occasion- 
ally referring, and that, too, with an air of anxiety 
ancl a tendency to lose the place of reference which 
were suggestive of a state of mortality. It was this, I 
conceive, which led to the Shade's being advised by the 
gallery to "turn over!" — a recommendation which it 
took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this 
majestic spirit that whereas it always appeared with an 
air of having been out a long time and walked an im- 
mense distance, it perceptibly came from a closely con- 
tiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be received 
derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom 
lady, though no doubt historically brazen, was con- 
sidered by the public to have too much brass about her; 
her chin being attached to her diadem by a broad band 
of that metal (as if she had a gorgeous toothache), her 
waist being encircled by another, and each of her arms 
by another, so that she was openly mentioned as "the 
kettledrum." The noble boy in the ancestral boots, 
was inconsistent ; representing himself, as it were in 
one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a grave- 
digger, a clergyman, and a person of the utmost im- 
portance at a Court fencing-match, on the authority 
of whose practised eye and nice discrimination the 
finest strokes were judged. This gradually led to a 
want of toleration for him, and even — on his being de- 
tected in holy orders, and declining to perform the 
funeral service — to the general indignation taking the 
form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow 
musical madness, that when in course of time, she had 
taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it up and buried 
it, a sulky man who had been long cooling his im- 
patient nose against an iron bar in the front row of the 
gallery, growled, " Now the baby's put to bed, let's have 
supper!" Which, to say the least of it, was out of 
keeping. 



248 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents 
accumulated with playful effect. Whenever that un- 
decided Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt, 
the public helped him out with it. As for example; on 
the question whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer, 
some roared yes, and some no, and some inclining to 
both opinions said "toss up for it;" and quite a Debat- 
ing Society arose. When he asked what should such 
fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, 
he was encouraged with loud cries of " Hear, hear ! " 
When he appeared with his stocking disordered (its 
disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very neat 
fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up 
with a flat iron), a conversation took place in the gal- 
lery respecting the paleness of his leg, and whether it 
was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him. 
On his taking the recorders — very like a little black flute 
that had just been played in the orchestra and handed 
out at the door — he was called upon unanimously for 
Rule Britannia. When he recommended the player not 
to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, " And don't you 
do it, neither ; you're a deal worse than him ! " And I 
grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle 
on every one of these occasions. 

But his greatest trials were in the churchyard: which 
had the appearance of a primeval forest, with a kind 
of small ecclesiastical wash-house on one side, and a 
turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in a compre- 
hensive black cloak, being descried entering at the 
turnpike, the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly 
way, " Look out ! Here's the undertaker a coming, to 
see how you're a getting on with your work ! " I believe 
it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr. 
Wopsle could not possibly have returned the skull, after 
moralising over it, without dusting his fingers on a 
white napkin taken from his breast ; but even that in- 
nocent and indispensable action did not pass without 
the comment " Wai-ter ! " The arrival of the body for 
interment (in an empty black box with the lid tumbling 
open), was the signal for a general joy which was much 
enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers, of an 
individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended 
Mr. Wopsle through his struggle with Laertes on the 
brink of the orchestra and the grave, and slackened no 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 249 

more until he had tumbled the king off the kitchen- 
table, and had died by inches from the ankles upward. 

We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to 
applaud Mr. Wopsle; but they were to© hopeless to be 
persisted in. Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for 
him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I 
laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing 
was so droll ; and yet I had a latent impression that 
there was something- decidedly fine in Mr. Wopsle's 
elocution — not for old associations' sake, I am afraid, 
but because it was very slow, very dreary, very up-hill 
and down-hill, and very unlike any way in which any 
man in any natural circumstances of life or death ever 
expressed himself about anything. When the tragedy 
was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said 
to Herbert, " Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet 
him.' 9 

We made all the haste we could down stairs, but we 
were not quick enough either. Standing at the door 
was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy smear of 
eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and 
said, when we came up with him : 

"Mr. Pip and friend?" 

Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed. 

" Mr. Waldengarver," said the man, "would be glad 
to have the honour." 

"Waldengarver?" I repeated — when Herbert mur- 
mured in my ear, " Probably Wopsle." 

" Oh! " said I. " Yes. Shall we follow you? " 

" A few steps, please." When we were in a side 
alley, he turned and asked, "How do you think he 
looked ? — I dressed him. " 

I don't know what he had looked like, except a 
funeral; with the addition of a large Danish sun or star 
hanging round his neck by a blue ribbon, that had given 
him the appearance of being insured in some extraor- 
dinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very 
nice. 

" When he come to the grave," said our conductor, 
"he showed his cloak beautiful. But, judging from 
the wing, it looked to me that when he see the ghost 
in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of 
his stockings." 

I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little 






250 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

dirty swing door, into a sort of hot packing-case imme- 
diately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle was divesting 
himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just 
room for us to leok at him over one another's shoulders, 
by keeping the packing-case door, or lid, wide open. 

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Wopsle, "I am proud to see 
you. I hope, Mr. Pip, you will excuse my sending 
round. I had the happiness to know you in former 
times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which 
has ever been acknowledged, on the noble and the 
affluent." 

Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful per- 
spiration, was trying to get himself out of his princely 
sables. 

" Skin the stockings off, Mr. Waldengarver," said the 
owner of that property, " or you'll bust 'em, Bust em, 
and you'll bust five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare 
never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep quiet 
in your chair now, and leave 'em to me." 

With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay 
his victim; who, on the first stocking coming off, would 
certainly have fallen over backward with his chair, but 
for there being no room to fall anyhow. 

I had been afraid until then to say a word about the 
play. But then, Mr. Waldengarver looked up at us 
complacently, and said: 

" Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?" 

Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking 
me), " capitally." Sol said " capitally." 

" How did you like my reading of the character, gen- 
tlemen ? " said Mr. Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, 
with patronage. 

Herbert said from behind (again poking me), " massive 
and concrete." So I said boldly, as if I had originated 
it, and must beg to insist upon it, "massive and con- 
crete." 

"I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen," 
said Mr. Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite 
of his being ground against the wall at the time, and 
holding on by the seat of the chair. 

"But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver," said 
the man who was on his knees, " in which you're out in 
your reading. Now mind! I don't care who says con- 
trairyj I tell you so. You're out in your reading of 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 251 

Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last 
Hamlet as I dressed, made the same mistakes in his 
reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a large red 
wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal 
(which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of 
the pit, and whenever his reading brought him into 
profile, I called out 'I don't see no wafers!' And at 
night his reading was lovely." 

Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say 
"a faithful dependent — I overlook his folly;" and then 
said aloud, " My view is a little too classic and thought- 
ful for them here; but they will improve, they will im- 
prove." 

Herbert and I said together, Oh, no doubt they would 
improve. 

" Did you observe, gentlemen," said Mr. Walden- 
garver, "that there was a man in the gallery who en- 
deavoured to cast derision on the service — I mean, the 
representation? " 

We basely replied that we rather thought we had 
noticed such a man. I added, " He was drunk, no 
doubt." 

"Oh dear no, sir," said Mr. Wopsle, "not drunk. 
His employer would see to that, sir. His employer 
would not allow him to be drunk." 

" You know his employer? " said I. 

Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; 
performing both ceremonies very slowly. "You must 
have observed, gentlemen," said he, "an ignorant and 
a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance 
expressive of low malignity, who went through — I will 
not say sustained — the role (if I may use a French ex- 
pression) of Claudius, King of Denmark. That is his 
employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!" 

Without distinctly knowing whether I should have 
been more sorry for Mr. Wopsle if he had been in de- 
spair, I was so sorry for him as it was, that I took the 
opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put 
on — which jostled us out at the doorway — to ask Her- 
bert what he thought of having him home to supper? 
Herbert said he thought it would be kind to do so; there- 
fore I invited him, and he went to Barnard's with us, 
wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, 
and he sat until two o'clock in the morning, reviewing 



252 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

his success and developing his plans. I forget in detail 
what they were, but I have a general recollection that 
he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end 
with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave 
it utterly bereft and without a chance or hope. 

Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably 
thought of Estella, and miserably dreamed that my 
expectations were all cancelled, and that I had to give 
my hand in marriage to Herbert's Clara, or play Hamlet 
to Miss Havisham's Ghost, before twenty thousand 
people, without knowing twenty words of it. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



ONE day when I was busy with my books and Mr. 
Pocket I received a note by the post, the mere 
outside of which threw me into a great flutter; for, 
though I had never seen the handwriting in which it 
was addressed, I divined whose hand it was. It had no 
set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, or Dear Pip, or Dear 
Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus : 

"I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the mid-day 
coach. I believe it was settled you should meet me ? At all events Miss 
Havisham has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends 
you her regard. 

Yours, Estella." 

If there had been time, I should probably have order- 
ed severaFsuit of clothes for this occasion; but as there 
was not, I was fain to be content with those I had. My 
appetite vanished instantly, and I knew no peace or 
rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought 
me either; for, then I was worse than ever, and began 
haunting the coach-office in Wood street, Cheapside, 
before the coach had left the Blue Boar in our town. 
For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still felt as if 
it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight 
longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition 
of unreason I had performed the first half -hour of a 
watch of four or five hours, when Wemmick ran against 
me. 

"Halloa, Mr. Pip," said he; "how do you do? I 
should hardly have thought this was yourhe&b" 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 253 



I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who 
was coming up by coach, and I inquired after the Castle 
and the Aged. 

"Both flourishing, thankye," said Wemmick, "and 
particularly the Aged. He's in wonderful feather. He'll 
be eighty-two next birthday. I have a notion of firing 
eighty -two times, if the neighbourhood shouldn't com- 
plain," and that cannon of mine should prove equal to 
the pressure. However, this is not London talk. Where 
do you think I am going to?" 

"To the office?" said I, for he was tending in that 
direction. 

"Next thing to it," returned Wemmick, "I am going 
to Newgate. We are in a banker's-parcel case just at 
present, and I have been down the road taking a squint 
at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word 
or two with our client." 

"Did your client commit the robbery?" I asked. 

" Bless your soul and body, no," answered Wemmick, 
very dryly. " But he is accused of it. So might you or 
I be. Either of us might be accused of it, you know." 

" Only neither of us is," I remarked. 

"Yah !" said Wemmick, touching me on the breast 
with his forefinger; "you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! 
Would you like to have a look at Newgate? Have you 
time to spare?" 

I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came 
as a relief, notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my 
latent desire to keep my eye on the coach-office. Mut- 
tering that I would make the inquiry whether I had 
time to walk with him, I went into the office, and ascer- 
tained from the clerk with the nicest precision and much 
to the trying of his temper, the earliest moment at which 
the coach could be expected — which I knew beforehand, 
quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and 
affecting to consult my watch and to be surprised by the 
information I had received, accepted his offer. 

We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed 
through the lodge where some fetters were hanging up 
on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the inte- 
rior of the jail. At that time, jails were much neglect- 
ed, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent 
on all public wrong-doing — and w^hich is always its 
heaviest and longest punishment— was still far off. 



254 GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 

So, felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers 
(to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their 
prisons with the excusable object of improving the 
flavour of their soup. It was visiting time when Wem- 
mick took me in; and a potman was going his rounds 
with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were 
buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frouzy, ugly, 
disorderly, depressing scene it was. 

It struck me that Wemmick walked among the pris- 
oners, much as a gardener might walk among his plants. 
This was first put into m> head by his seeing a shoot 
that had come up in the night, and saying, " What, 
Captain Tom? Are you there? Ah, indeed !" and also, 
" Is that Black Bill behind the cistern? Why I didn't 
look for you these two months; how do you find your- 
self ? " Equally in his stopping at the bars and attend- 
ing to anxious whisperers — always singly — Wemmick 
with his post-office in an immovable state, looked at 
them while in conference, as if he were taking par- 
ticular notice of the advance they had made, since 
last observed, towards coming out in full blow at their 
trial. 

He was highly popular, and I found that he took 
the familiar department of Mr. Jaggers's business*, 
though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers hung 
about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain 
limits. His personal recognition of each successive 
client was comprised in a nod, and in his settling his 
hat a little easier on his head with both hands and 
then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands 
in his pockets. In one or two instances, there was a 
little difficulty respecting the raising of fees, and then 
Mr. Wemmick, backing as far as possible from the in- 
sufficient money produced, said, " It's no use, my boy. 
I'm only a subordinate. I can't take it. Don't go on 
in that way with a subordinate. If you,are unable to 
make up your quantum, my boy, you had better ad- 
dress yourself to a principal; there are plenty of prin- 
cipals in the profession, you know, and what is not 
worth the while of one, may be worth the while of 
another; that's my recommendation to you, speaking 
as a subordinate. Don't try on useless measures. Why 
should you ? Now, who's next ? " 

Thus, we walked through Wemmick's greenhouse, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 255 

until he turned to me and said, " Notice the man I shall 
shake hands with.*' I should have done so, without the 
preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet. 

Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright 
man (whom I can see now, as I write) in a well-worn 
olive-coloured frock-coat, with a peculiar pallor over- 
spreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that 
went wandering about when he tried to fix them, came 
up to a corner of the bars, and put his hand to his hat — 
which had a greasy and fatty surface like cold broth 
— with a half -serious and half-jocose military salute. 

"Colonel, to you!" said Wemmick; "how are you, 
Colonel?" 

"All right, Mr. Wemmick.'" 

"Everything was done that could be done, but the 
evidence was too strong for us, Colonel." 

"Yes, it was too strong, sir — but I don't care." 

"No, no," said Wemmick, coolly, "you don't care." 
Then, turning to me, "Served His Majesty this man. 
Was a soldier in the line and bought his discharge." 

I said, "Indeed ?" and the man's eyes looked at me, 
and then looked over my head, and theu looked all 
round me, and then he drew his hand across his lips and 
laughed. 

" I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir," he 
said to Wemmick. 

" Perhaps," returned my friend, "but there's no know- 
ing." 

" I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-by, 
Mr. Wemmick," said the man, stretching out his hand 
between two bars. 

" Thankye," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. 
" Same to you, Colonel." 

"If what I had upon me when taken, had been real, 
Mr. Wemmick," said the man unwilling to let his hand 
go, " I should have asked the favour of your wearing 
another ring — in acknowledgment of your attentions." 

"I'll accept the will for the deed," said Wemmick. 
"By-the-by; you were quite a pigeon fancier." The 
man looked up at the sky. "I am told you had a re- 
makable breed of tumblers. Could you commission any 
friend of yours to bring me a pair, if you've no further 
use for 'em?" 

It shall be done, sir." 



t i 



256 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"All right/' said Wemmick, "they shall be taken 
care of. Good afternoon, Colonel. Good-by!" They 
shook hands again, and as we walked away Wemmick 
said to me, "A Coiner, a very good workman. The 
Recorder's report is made to-day, and he is sure to be 
executed on Monday. Still you see, as far as it goes, a 
pair of pigeons are portable property, all the same." 
With that, he looked back, and nodded at this dead 
plant, and then cast his eyes about him in walking out 
of the yard, as if he were considering what other pot 
would go best in its place. 

As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I 
found that the great importance of my guardian was 
appreciated by the turnkeys, no less than by those whom 
they held in charge. "Well, Mr. Wemmick," said the 
turnkey who kept us between the two studded and 
spiked lodge gates, and who carefully locked one be- 
fore he unlocked the other, " what's Mr. Jaggers going 
to do with that waterside murder ? Is he going to 
make it manslaughter, or what's he going to make of 
it?" 

" Why don't you ask him ? " returned Wemmick. 

" Oh, yes, I dare say ! " said the turnkey. 

"Now, that's the way with them here, Mr. Pip," re- 
marked Wemmick, turning to me with his post-office 
elongated. "They don't mind what they ask of me, 
the subordinate; but you'll never ketch 'em asking any 
questions of my principal." 

" Is this young gentleman one of the 'prentices or ar- 
ticled ones of your office ? " asked the turnkey, with a 
grin at Mr. Wemmick s humour. 

" There he goes again, you see !" cried Wemmick, "I 
told you so! Asks another question of the subordinate 
before his first is dry! Well, supposing Mr. Pip is one 
of them?" 

" Why then," said the turnkey, grinning again, "he 
knows what Mr. Jaggers is." 

" Yah !" cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the 
turnkey in a facetious way, " you're areas dumb as one 
of your own keys when you have to do with my prin- 
cipal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or 
I'll get him to bring an action against you for false im- 
prisonment." 

The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and 






WEMMTCK AND "THE AGED. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 257 

stood laughing at us over the spikes of the wicket when 
we descended the steps into the street. 

" Mind you, Mr. Pip/' said Wemmick, gravely in my 
ear, as he took my arm to be more confidential ; " I 
don't know that Mr. Jaggers does a better thing than 
the way in which he keeps himself so high. He's 
always so high. His constant height is of a piece with 
his immense abilities. That Colonel durst no more 
take leave of him, than that turnkey durst ask him his 
intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height 
and them, he slips in his subordinate — don't you see ? " 
— and so he has 'em, soul and body." 

I was very much impressed, and not for the first time, 
by my guardian's subtlety. To confess the truth, I 
very heartily wished, and not for the first time, that I 
had had some other guardian of minor abilities. 

Mr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little 
Britain where suppliants for Mr. Jaggers's notice were 
lingering about as usual, and I returned to my watch 
in the street of the coach -office, with some three hours 
on hand. I consumed the whole time in thinking how 
strange it was that I should be encompassed by all this 
taint of prison and crime ; that, in my childhood out on 
our lonely marshes on a winter evening, I should have 
first encountered it ; that, it should have reappeared on 
two occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded 
but not gone ; that, it should in this new way pervade 
my fortune and advancement. While my mind was 
thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, 
proud and refined, coming towards me, and I thought 
with absolute abhorrence of the contrast between the 
jail and her. I wished that Wemmick had not met me, 
or that I had not yielded to him and gone with him, so 
that, of all days in the year on this day, I might not 
have had Newgate in my breath and on my clothes. I 
beat the prison dust off my feet as I sauntered to and 
fro, and I shook it out of my dress, and I exhaled its air 
from my lungs. So contaminated did I feel, remem- 
bering who was coming, that the coach came quickly 
after all, and I was not yet free from the soiling con- 
sciousness of Mr. Wemmick's conservatory, when I saw 
her face at the coach window and her hand waving to me. 

What ivas the nameless shadow which again in tha* 
one instant had passed ? 

vol. i. 17 



258 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



JN" her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more 
delicately beautiful than she had ever seemed yet, 
even in my eyes. Her manner was more winning than 
she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I 
saw Miss Havisham's influence in the change. 

We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her 
luggage to me, and when it was all collected I remem- 
bered — having forgotten everything but herself in the 
mean while — that I knew nothing of her destination. 

"I am going to Richmond," she told me. "Our les- 
son is, that there are two Richmonds, one in Surrey and 
one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the Surrey Richmond. 
The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and 
you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to 
pay my charges out of it. Oh, you must take the purse! 
We have no choice, you and I, but to obey our instruc- 
tions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you 
and I." 

As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped 
there was an inner meaning in her words. She said them 
slightingly, but not with displeasure. 

"A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will 
you rest here a little ? " 

"Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some 
tea, and you are to take care of me the while." 

She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, 
and I requested a waiter who had been stari lg at the 
coach like a man who had never seen such a thing in 
his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, be 
pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clue without 
which he couldn't find the way up-stairs, and led us to 
the black hole of the establishment: fitted up with a 
diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article consider- 
ing the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and 
somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he 
took us into another room with a dinner-table for thirty, 
and in the grate a scorched leaf of a copy-book under a 
bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at this extinct con- 
flagration and shaken his head, he took my order: which, 
proving to be merely, " Some tea for the lady," sent him 
out of the room in a very low state of mind. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 259 

I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, 
in its strong combination of stable with soup-stock, 
might have led one to infer that the coaching depart- 
ment was not doing well, and that the enterprising 
proprietor was boiling down the horses for the refresh- 
ment department. Yet the room was all in all to me, 
Estella being in it. I thought that with her I could 
have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy 
there at the time, observe, and I knew it well.) 

"Where are you going to, at Richmond?" I asked 
Estella. 

" I am going to live/ 5 said she, "at a great expense, 
with a lady there, who has the power — or says she has 
— of taking me about, and introducing me, and show- 
ing people to me and showing me to people." 

" 1 suppose you will be glad of variety and admira- 
tion?" 

"Yes, I suppose so." 

She answered so carelessly, that I said, "You speak 
of yourself as if you were some one else." 

" Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, 
come," said Estella, smiling delightfully, "you must 
not expect me to go to school to you; I must talk in my 
own way. How do you thrive with Mr. Pocket?" 

"I live quite pleasantly there; at least " It ap- 
peared to me that I was losing a chance. 

"At least?" repeated Estella. 

" As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you." 

" You silly boy," said Estella, quite composedly, "how 
can you talk such nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, 
I believe, is superior to the rest of his family?" 

"Very superior indeed. He is nobody's enemy " 

" — Don't add but his own," interposed Estella, "for I 
hate that class of man. But he really is disinterested, 
and above small jealousy and spite, I have heard? " 

"I am sure I have every reason to say so." 

" You have not every reason to say so of the rest of 
his people," said Estella, nodding at me with an expres- 
sion of face that was at once grave and rallying, "for 
they beset Miss Havisham with reports and insinua- 
tions to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrep- 
resent you, write letters about you (anonymous some- 
times), and you are the torment and occupation of their 
lives. 



260 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

You can scarcely realise to yourself the hatred those 
people feel for you." 

" They do me no harm, I hope?" 

Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. 
This was very singular to me, and I looked at her in 
considerable perplexity. When she left off — and she 
had not laughed languidly, but with real enjoyment — 
I said, in my diffident way with her: 

" I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused 
if they did me any harm?" 

"No, no, you may be sure of that," said Estella. " You 
may be certain that I laugh because they fail. Oh, those 
people with Miss Havisham, and the tortures they under- 
go!" She laughed again, and even now, when she had 
told me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for 
I could not doubt its being genuine, and yet it seemed 
too much for the occasion. I thought there must really 
be something more here than I knew; she saw the 
thought in my mind, and answered it. 

"It is not easy for even you," said Estella, "to know 
what satisfaction it gives me to see those people 
thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of the ridiculous 
I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were 
not brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. 
— I was. You had not your little wits sharpened by 
their intriguing against you, suppressed and defence- 
less, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what 
not, that is soft and soothing. — I had. You did not 
gradually open your round childish eyes wider and 
wider to the discovery of that impostor of a woman who 
calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she 
wakes up in the night. — I did." 

It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was 
she summoning these remembrances from any shallow 
place. I would not have been the cause of that look of 
hers, for all my expectations in a heap. 

"Two things I can tell you," said Estella. "First, 
notwithstanding the proverb, that constant dropping 
will wear away a stone, you may set your mind at rest 
that these people never will — never would, in a hundred 
years — impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any 
particular, great or small. Second, I am beholden to 
you as the cause of their being so busy and so mean in 
vain, and there is my hand upon it." 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 261 

As she gave it me playfully — for her darker mood had 
been but momentary — I held it and put it to my lips. 
"You ridiculous boy/' said Estella, "will you never 
take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the same 
spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?" 

"What spirit was that?" said I. 

" I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the 
fawners and plotters." 

" If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?" 

" You should have asked before you touched the hand. 
But, yes, if you like." 

I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue's. 
" Now," said Estella, gliding away the instant I touched 
her cheek, " you are to take care that I have some tea, 
: and you are to take me to Richmond." 

Her reverting to this tone as if our association were 
forced upon us and we were mere puppets, gave me 
pain; but everything in our intercourse did give me 
pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be, I 
could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet 
I went on against trust and against hope. Why repeat 
it a thousand times ? So it always was. 

I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with 
his magic clue, brought in by degrees some fifty 
adjuncts to that reireshment, but of tea not a glimpse. 
A teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and forks 
(including carvers), spoons (various), salt-cellars, a meek 
little muffin confined with the utmost precaution under a 
strong iron cover, Moses in the bullrushes typified by a 
soft bit of butter in a quantity of parsley, a pale loaf 
with a powdered head, two proof impressions of the 
bars of the kitchen fire-place on triangular bits of bread, 
i and ultimately a fat family urn: which the waiter stag- 
; gered in with, expressing in his countenance burden 
and suffering. After a prolonged absence at this stage 
of the entertainment, he at length came back with a 
casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These 
I steeped in hot water, and so from the whole of these 
appliances extracted one cup of I don't know what, for 
Estella. 

The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the 

I ostler not forgotten, and the chambermaid taken into 

consideration — in a word, the whole house bribed into 

a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse 







262 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

much lightened — we got into our post-coach and drove 
away. Turning into Cheapside and rattling up New- 
gate-street, we were soon under the walls of which I 
was so ashamed. 

"What place is that?" Estella asked me. 

I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognising 
it, and then told her. As she looked at it, and drew in 
her head again, murmuring " Wretches !" I would not 
have confessed to my visit for any consideration. 

" Mr. Jaggers," said I, by way of putting it neatly on 
somebody else, "has the reputation of being more in 
the secrets of that dismal place than any man in 
London." 

" He is more in the secrets of every place, I think," 
said Estella, in a low voice. 

" You have been accustomed to see him often, I I 
suppose?" 

" I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain in- j 
tervals, ever since I can remember. But I know him 
no better now, than I did before I could speak plainly. 
What is your own experience of him? Do you advance 
with him ? " 

"Once habituated to his distrustful manner," said I, 
" I have done very well." 

"Are you intimate?" 

" I have dined with him at his private house." 

"I fancy," said Estella, shrinking, "that must be 
curious place." 

" It is a curious place." 

I should have been chary of discussing my guardian 
too freely even with her ; but I should have gone on with 
the subject so far as to describe the dinner in Gerrard- 
street, if we had not then come into a sudden glare of 
gas. It seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and 
alive with that inexplicable feeling I had had before ; 
and when we were out of it, I was as much dazed for a 
few moments as if I had been* in Lightning. 

So, we fell into other talk, and it was principally 
about the way by which we were travelling, and about 
what parts of London lay on this side of it, and what on ! 
that. The great city was almost new to her, she told 
me, for she had never left Miss Havisham's neighbour- 
hood until she had gone to France, and she had merely 
passed through London then in going and returning. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 263 



I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her while 
she remained here? To that she emphatically said, 
" God forbid! " and no more. 

It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she 
cared to attract me ; that she made herself winning ; 
and would have won me even if the task had needed 
pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for, even if 
she had not taken that tone of our being disposed of by 
others, I should have felt that she held my heart in her 
hand because she wilfully chose to do it, and not be- 
cause it would have wrung any tenderness in her, to 
crush it and throw it away. 

When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed 
her where Mr. Matthew Pocket lived, and said it was 
no great way from Richmond, and that I hoped I should 
see her sometimes. 

" Oh yes, you are to see me ; you are to come when 
you think proper ; you are to be mentioned to the 
family ; indeed you are already mentioned." 

I inquired was it a large household she was going to 
be a member of? 

" No ; there are only two ; mother and daughter. The 
mother is a lady of some station, though not averse to 
increasing her income." 

" I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again 
so soon." 

" It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for me, Pip," 
said Estella, with a sigh, as if she were tired ; " I am to 
write to her constantly and see her regularly, and re- 
port how I go on— I and the jewels — for they are nearly 
all mine now." 

It was the first time she had ever called me by my 
name. Of course she did so, purposely, and knew that 
I should treasure it up. 

We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destina- 
tion there, was a house by the Green: a staid old house, 
where hoops and powder and patches, embroidered 
coats rolled stockings ruffles and swords, had had their 
court days many a time. Some ancient trees before the 
house were still cut into fashions as formal and un- 
natural as the hoops and wigs and stiff skirts ; but their 
own allotted places in the great procession of the dead 
were not far off, and they would soon drop into them 
and go the silent way of the rest. 



266 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. • 

could hardly begin but Herbert must begin too, so he 
soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put ourselves 
down for election into a club called the Finches of the 
Grove: the object of which institution I have never 
divined, if it were not that the members should dine 
expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among them- 
selves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause 
six waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these 
gratifying social ends were so invariably accomplished, 
that Herbert and I understood nothing else to be referred 
to in the first standing toast of the society: which ran 
''Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feel- 
ing ever reign predominant among the Finches of the 
Grove." 

The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel 
we dined at was in Covent Garden), and the first Finch 
I saw when I had the honour of joining the Grove, was 
Bentley Drummle : at that time floundering about town 
in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage 
to the posts at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot 
himself out of his equipage head-foremost 'over the 
apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver himself 
at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way — like 
coals. But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a 
Finch, and could not be, according to the sacred laws 
of the society, until I come of age. 

In my confidence in my own resources, I would will- 
ingly have taken Herbert's expenses on myself; but 
Herbert was proud, and I could make no such proposal 
to him. So, he got into difficulties in every direction, 
and continued to look about him. When we gradually 
fell into keeping late hours and late company, I noticed 
that he looked about him with a desponding eye at 
breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more 
hopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when he came 
in to dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the dis- 
tance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but 
realized Capital towards midnight; and that about two 
o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent 
again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, 
with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make 
his fortune. 

I was usually at Hammersmith about half the 
(veek, and when I was at Hammersmith I haunted 



. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 267 

Richmond: whereof separately by-and-by. Herbert 
would come often to Hammersmith when I was there, 
and I think at those seasons his father would occasion- 
ally have some passing perception that the opening he 
was looking for, had not appeared yet. But in the 
general tumbling up of the family, his tumbling out 
in life somewhere, was a thing to transact itself some- 
how. In the meantime Mr. Pocket grew greyer and 
tried oftener to lift himself out of his perplexities by 
the hair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family 
with her footstool, read her book of dignities, lost 
her pocket-handkerchief, told us about her grandpapa, 
and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting 
it into bed whenever it attracted her notice. 

As I am now generalising a period of my life with 
the object of clearing my way before me, I can 
scarcely do so better than by at once completing the de- 
scription of our usual manners and customs at Bar- 
nard's Inn. 

We spent as much money as we could, and got as 
little for it as people could make up their minds to give 
us. We were always more or less miserable, and most 
of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There 
was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly 
enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never 
did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last 
aspect a rather common one. 

Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went 
into the City to look about him. I often paid him 
a visit in the dark back-room in which he consorted 
with an ink- jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an 
almanack, a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not 
remember that I ever saw him do anything else but 
look about him. If we all did what we undertake to 
do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a 
Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, 
poor fellow, except at a certain hour of every afternoon 
to " go to Lloyd's" — in observance of a ceremony of see- 
ing his principal, I think. He never did anything else 
in connexion with Lloyd's that I could find out, except 
come back again. When he felt his case unusually 
serious, and that he positively must find an opening, 
he would go on 'Change at a busy time, and walk in 
and out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, 



266 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. • 

could hardly begin but Herbert must begin too, so he 
soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put ourselves 
down for election into a club called the Finches of the 
Grove: the object of which institution I have never 
divined, if it were not that the members should dine 
expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among them- 
selves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause 
six waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these 
gratifying social ends were so invariably accomplished, 
that Herbert and I understood nothing else to be referred 
to in the first standing toast of the society: which ran 
"Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feel- 
ing ever reign predominant among the Finches of the 
Grove." 

The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel 
we dined at was in Co vent Garden), and the first Finch 
I saw when I had the honour of joining the Grove, was 
Bentley Drummle : at that time floundering about town 
in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage 
to the posts at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot 
himself out of his equipage head-foremost over the 
apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver himself 
at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way — like 
coals. But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a 
Finch, and could not be, according to the sacred laws 
of the society, until I come of age. 

In my confidence in my own resources, I would will- 
ingly have taken Herbert's expenses on myself; but 
Herbert was proud, and I could make no such proposal 
to him. So, he got into difficulties in every direction, 
and continued to look about him. When we gradually 
fell into keeping late hours and late company, I noticed 
that he looked about him with a desponding eye at 
breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more 
hopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when he came 
in to dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the dis- 
tance, rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but 
realized Capital towards midnight; and that about two 
o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent 
again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, 
with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make 
his fortune. 

I was usually at Hammersmith about half the 
<veek„ and when I was at Hammersmith I haunted 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 267 

Richmond: whereof separately by-and-by. Herbert 
would come often to Hammersmith when I was there, 
and I think at those seasons his father would occasion- 
ally have some passing perception that the opening he 
was looking for, had not appeared yet. But in the 
general tumbling up of the family, his tumbling out 
in life somewhere, was a thing to transact itself some- 
how. In the meantime Mr. Pocket grew greyer and 
tried oftener to lift himself out of his perplexities by 
the hair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family 
with her footstool, read her book of dignities, lost 
her pocket-handkerchief, told us about her grandpapa, 
and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting 
it into bed whenever it attracted her notice. 

As I am now generalising a period of my life with 
the object of clearing my way before me, I can 
scarcely do so better than by at once completing the de- 
scription of our usual manners and customs at Bar- 
nard's Inn. 

We spent as much money as we could, and got as 
little for it as people could make up their minds to give 
us. We were always more or less miserable, and most 
of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There 
was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly 
enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never 
did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last 
aspect a rather common one. 

Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went 
into the City to look about him. I often paid him 
a visit in the dark back-room in which he consorted 
with an ink-jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an 
almanack, a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not 
remember that I ever saw him do anything else but 
look about him. If we all did what we undertake to 
do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a 
Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, 
poor fellow, except at a certain hour of every afternoon 
to " go to Lloyd's" — in observance of a ceremony of see- 
ing his principal, I think. He never did anything else 
in connexion with Lloyd's that I could find out, except 
come back again. When he felt his case unusually 
serious, and that he positively must find an opening, 
he would go on 'Change at a busy time, and walk in 
and out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, 



268 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

among the assembled magnates. "For," says Herbert 
to me, coming home to dinner on one of those special 
occasions, " I find the truth to be, Handel, that an 
opening won't come to one, but one must go to it 
so I have been." 

If we had been less attached to one another, I think 
we must have hated one another regularly every morn- 
ing. I detested the chambers beyond expression at 
that period of repentance, and could not endure the 
sight of the Avenger's livery : which had a more ex- 
pensive and a less remunerative appearance then, than 
at any other time in the f our-and-twenty hours. As we 
got more and more into debt, breakfast became a hol- 
lower and hollower form, and, being on one occasion 
at breakfast-time threatened (by letter) with legal pro- 
ceedings, "not unwholly unconnected," as my local 
paper might put it, " with jewellery," I went so far as to 
seize the Avenger by his blue collar and shake him off 
his feet — so that he was actually in the air, like a booted 
Cupid — for presuming to suppose that we wanted a roll. 

At certain times — meaning at uncertain times, for 
they depended on our humour — I would say to Herbert, 
as if it were a remarkable discovery : 

"My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly." 

"My dear Handel," Herbert would say to me, in all 
sincerity, "if you will believe me, those very words 
were on my lips, by a strange coincidence." 

"Then, Herbert," I would respond, "Let us look into 
our affairs." 

We always derived profound satisfaction from mak- 
ing an appointment for this purpose. I always thought 
this was business, this was the way to confront the 
thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. 
And I know Herbert thought so too. 

We ordered something rather special for dinner, with 
a bottle of something similarly out of the common way, 
in order that our minds might be fortified for the oc- 
casion, and we might come well up to the mark. Din- 
ner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious sup- 
ply of ink, and a goodly show of writing and blottin] 
paper. For, there was something very comfortable i: 
having plenty of stationery. 

I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across 
the top of it, in a neat hand, the heading, "Memoran- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 269 

dum of Pip's debts; M with Barnard's Inn and the 
date very carefully added. Herbert would also take 
a sheet of paper, and write across it with similar 
formalities, "Memorandum of Herbert's debts." 

Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of 
papers at his side, which had been thrown into drawers, 
worn into holes in pockets, half -burnt in lighting candles, 
stuck for weeks into the looking-glass, and otherwise 
damaged. The sound of our pens going, refreshed us 
exceedingly, insomuch that I sometimes found it diffi- 
cult to distinguish between this edifying business pro- 
ceeding and actually paying the money. In point of 
meritorious character, the two things seemed about 
equal. 

When we had written a little while, I would ask Her- 
bert how he got on ? Herbert probably would have 
been scratching his head in a most rueful manner at the 
sight of his accumulating figures. 

" They are mounting up, Handel," Herbert would say; 
"upon my life, they are mounting up." 

"Be firm, Herbert," I would retort, plying my own 
pen with great assiduity. " Look the thing in the face. 
Look into your affairs. Stare them out of countenance." 

"So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of 
countenance." 

However, my determined manner would have its 
effect, and Herbert would fall to work again. After a 
time he would give up once more, on the plea that he had 
not got Cobbs's bill, or Lobbs's or Nobbs'g, as the case 
might be. 

"Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round 
numbers, and put it down." 

"What a fellow of resource you are!" my friend 
would reply, with admiration. "Really your business 
powers are very remarkable." 

I thought so too. I established with myself, on these 
occasions, the reputation of a first-rate man of business 
— prompt, decisive, energetic, clear, cool-headed. W^ en 
I had got all my responsibilities down upon my list, I 
compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My self- 
appro va] when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious 
sensation. When I had no more ticks to make, I folded 
all my bills up uniformly, docketed each on the back, 
and tied the whole into a symmetrical bundle. Then I 



270 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

did the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not 
my administrative genius), and felt that I had brought 
his affairs into a focus for him. 

My business habits had one other bright feature, which 
I called " leaving a Margin." For example ; supposing 
Herbert's debts to be one hundred and sixty-four pounds 
four-and-two-pence, I would say, " Leave a margin, and 
put them down at two hundred.'" Or, supposing my own 
to be four times as much, I would leave a margin, and 
put them down at seven hundred. I had the highest 
opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, but I am 
bound to acknowledge that on looking back, I deem it 
to have been an expensive device. For, we always ran 
into new debt immediately, to the full extent of the 
margin, and sometimes, in the sense of freedom and 
solvency it imparted, got pretty far on into another 
margin. 

But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, conse- 
quent on these examinations of our affairs that gave me, 
for the time, an admirable opinion of myself. Soothed 
by my exertions,my method,and Herbert's compliments, 
I would sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on 
the table before me among the stationery, and feel like 
a Bank of some sort, rather than a private individual. 

We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions in 
order that we might not be interrupted. I had fallen 
into my serene state one evening, when we heard a let- 
ter dropped through the slit in the said door, and fall on 
the ground. " It's for you, Handel," said Herbert, going 
out and coming back with it, "and I hope there is 
nothing the matter." This was in allusion to its heavy 
black seal and border. 

The letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents 
were simply, that 1 was an honoured sir, and that they 
begged to inform me that Mrs. J. Gargery had departed 
this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six in 
the evening, and that my attendance was requested at 
the interment on Monday next at three o'clock in the 
afternoon. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 271 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

IT was the first time that a grave had opened in my 
road of life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground 
was wonderful. The figure of my sister in her chair by 
the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That the 
place could possibly be, without her, was something my 
mind seemed unable to compass; and whereas she had 
seldom or never been in my thoughts of late, I had now 
the strangest ideas that she was coming towards me in 
the street, or that she would presently knock at the 
door. In my rooms too, with which she had never been 
at all associated, there was at once the blankness of 
death and a perpetual suggestion of the sound of her 
voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were still 
alive and had been often there. 

Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could 
scarcely have recalled my sister with much tenderness. 
But I suppose there is a shock of regret which may exist 
without much tenderness. Under its influence (and 
perhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) 
I was seized with a violent indignation against the 
assailant from whom she had suffered so much; and I felt 
that on sufficient proof I could have revengefully pur- 
sued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity. 

Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and 
to assure him that I would come to the funeral, I passed 
the intermediate days in the curious state of mind I 
have glanced at. I went down early in the morning, 
and alighted at the Blue Boar in good time to walk over 
to the forge. 

It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked 
along, the times when I was a little helpless creature, 
and my sister did not spare me, vividly returned. But 
they returned with a gentle tone upon them that soft- 
ened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very 
breath of the beans and clover whispered to my heart 
that the day must come when it would be well for my 
memory that others walking in the sunshine should be 
softened as they thought of me. 



272 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that 
Trabb and Co. had put in a funereal execution and taken 
possession. Two dismally absurd persons, each osten- 
tatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage 
as if that instrument could possibly communicate any 
comfort to anybody — were posted at the front door; and 
in one of them I recognised a postboy discharged from 
the Boar for turning a young couple into a sawpit on 
their bridal morning, in consequence of intoxication 
rendering it necessary for him to ride his horse clasped 
round the neck with both arms. All the children of the 
village, and most of the women, were admiring these 
sable warders and the closed windows of the house and 
forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the 
postboy) knocked at the door — implying that I was far 
too much exhausted by grief, to have strength remain- 
ing to knock for myself. 

Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once 
eaten two geese for a wager) opened the door, and 
showed me into the best parlour. Here, Mr. Trabb had 
taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the 
leaves up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with 
the aid of a quantity of black pins. At the moment of 
my arrival, he had just finished putting somebody's hat 
into black long-clothes, like an African baby; so he 
held out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, 
and confused by the occasion, shook hands with him 
with every testimony of warm affection. 

Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied 
in a large bow under his chin, was seated apart at the 
upper end of the room; where, as chief mourner, he had 
evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent down 
and said to him, " Dear Joe, how are you?" he said, 
" Pip, old chap, you knowed her when she were a fine 

figure of a " and clasped my hand and said no 

more. 

Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black 
dress, went quietly here and there, and was very help- 
ful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as I thought it not a 
time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and 
there began to wonder in what part of the house it — she 
— my sister — was. The air of the parlour being faint 
with the smell of sweet cake, I looked about for the 
table of refreshments; it was scarcely visible until one 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 273 

had got accustomed to the gloom, but there was a cut- 
up plum-cake upon it, and there were cut-up oranges, 
and sandwiches, and biscuits, and two decanters that 
I knew very well as ornaments, but had never seen 
used in all my life; one full of port, and one of sherry. 
Standing at this table, I became conscious of the 
servile Pumblechook in a black cloak and several yards 
of hat-band, who was alternately stuffing himself, and 
making obsequious movements to catch my attention. 
The moment he succeeded, he came over to me (breath- 
ing sherry and crumbs), and said in a subdued voice, 
"May I, dear sir?" and did. I then descried Mr. and 
Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent speechless 
paroxysm in a corner. We were all going to "follow," 
and were all in course of being tied up separately (by 
Trabb) into ridiculous bundles. 

" Which I meantersay, Pip," Joe whispered me, as 
we were being what Mr. Trabb called "formed" in the 
parlour, two and two — and it was dreadfully like a 
preparation for some grim kind of dance; " which I 
meantersay, sir, as I would in preference have carried her 
to the church myself, along with three or four friendly 
ones wot come to it with willing harts and arms, but 
it were considered wot the neighbours would look 
down on such and would be of opinions as it were 
wanting in respect." 

" Pocket-handkerchief s out, all!" cried Mr. Trabb at 
this point, in a depressed business-like voice. "Pock- 
et-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!" 

So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, 
as if our noses were bleeding, and filed out two and 
two; Joe and I; Biddy and Pumblechook. Mr. and Mrs. 
Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been 
brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point 
of Undertaking ceremony that the six bearers must be 
stifled and blinded under a horrible black velvet hous- 
ing with a white border, the whole looked like a blind 
monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blun- 
dering along, under the guidance of two keepers — the 
postboy and his comrade. 

The neighbourhood, however, highly approved of 
these arrangements, and we were much admired as we 
went through the village; the more youthful and vig- 
orous part of the community making dashes now and 
vol. i. is. 



274 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

then to cut us off, and lying in wait to intercept us at 
points of vantage. At such times the more exuberant 
among them called out in an excited manner on our 
emergence round some corner of expectancy, "Here they 
come." ''Here they are! " and we were all but cheered. 
In this progress I was much annoyed by the abject Pum-' 
blechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way 
as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming 
hatband, and smoothing my cloak. My thoughts were 
further distracted by the excessive pride of Mr. and 
Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and 
vainglorious in being members of so distinguished a 
procession. 

And now the range of marshes lay clear before us 
with the sails of the ships on the river growing out of 
it; and we went into the churchyard, close to the graves 
of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this 
parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And 
there, my sister was laid quietly in the earth while the 
larks sang high above it and the light wind strewed it 
with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees. 

Of the conduct of the wordly-minded Pumblechook 
while this was doing, I desire to say no more than it 
was all addressed to me; and that even when those 
noble passages were read which remind humanity how 
it brought nothing into the world and can take nothing 
out, and how it fleeth like a shadow and never contin- 
ueth long in one stay, I heard him cough a reservation 
of the case of a young gentleman who came unexpect- 
edly into large property. When we got back, he had 
the hardihood to tell me that lie wished my sister could 
have known I had done her so much honour, and to 
hint that she would have considered it reasonably 
purchased at the price of her death. After that, he 
drank all the rest of the sherry, and Mr. Hubble drank 
the port, and the two talked (which I have since ob- 
served to be customary in such Gases) as if they were 
of quite another race from the deceased, and were 
notoriously immortal. Finally, he went away with Mr. 
and Mrs. Hubble — to make an evening of it, I felt sure, 
and to tell the Jolly Bargmen that he was the founder 
of my fortunes and my earliest benefactor. 

When they were all gone, and when Trabb and his 
men — but not his boy: I looked for him — had crammed 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 275 

their mummery into bags, and were gone too, the house 
felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I ? 
had a cold dinner together; but we dined in the best 
parlour, not in the old kitchen, and Joe was so exceed- 
ingly particular what he did with his knife and fork and 
the salt-cellar and what not, that there w^as great re- 
straint upon us. But after dinner, when I made him take 
his pipe, and when I had loitered with him about the 
forge, and when we sat down together on the great block 
of stone outside it, we got on better. I noticed that after 
the funeral Joe changed his clothes so far as to make a 
compromise, between his Sunday dress and working 
dress: in which the dear fellow looked natural, and like 
the Man he was. 

He was very much pleased by my asking if I might 
sleep in my own little room, and I was pleased too; for, 
I felt that I had done rather a great thing in making 
the request. When the shadows of evening were clos- 
ing in, I took an opportunity of getting into the garden 
with Biddy for a little talk. 

" Biddy," said I, " I think you might have written to 
me about these sad matters." 

"Do you, Mr. Pip?" said Biddy. "I should have 
written if I had thought that." 

" Don't suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, 
when I say I consider that you ought to have thought 
that " 

"Do you, Mr. Pip ?" 

She was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and 
pretty way with her, that I did not like the thought of 
making her cry again. After looking a little at her 
downcast eyes as she walked beside me, I gave up 
that point. 

"I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here 
now, Biddy dear ? " 

"Oh ! I can't do so, Mr. Pip," said Biddy, in a tone 
of regret but still of quiet conviction. "I have been 
speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and I am going to her to- 
morrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of 
Mr. Gargery, together, until he settles down." 

"How are you going to live, Biddy ? If you want 
any mo " 

" How am I going to live?" repeated Biddy, striking 
in, with a momentary flush upon her face. " I'll tell 



276 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get the place of mis- 
tress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be 
well recommended by all the neighbours, and I hope I 
can be industrious and patient, and teach myself while 
I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip," pursued Biddy, 
with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, " the 
new schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal 
from you after that time, and have had time since then 
to improve." 

" I think you would always improve, Biddy, under 
any circumstances." 

"Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature," 
murmured Biddy. 

It was not so much a reproach, as an irresistible think- 
ing aloud. Well ! I thought I would give up that point 
too. So, I walked a little further with Biddy, looking 
silently at her downcast eyes. 

" I have not heard the particulars of my sister's death, 
Biddy." 

"They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in 
one of her bad states — though they had got better of 
late, rather than worse — for four days, when she came 
out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and said quite 
plainly, c Joe.' As she had never said any word for a 
long while, I ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the 
forge. She made signs to me that she wanted him to 
sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms 
round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she 
laid her head down on his shoulder quite content and 
satisfied. And so she presently said ' Joe ' again, and 
once /Pardon/ and once 'Pip.' And so she never lifted 
her head up any more, and it was just an hour later 
when we laid it down on her own bed, because we found 
she was gone." 

Biddy cried ; the darkening garden, and the lane, 
and the stars that were coming out, were blurred in my 
own sight. 

" Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy ?" 

"Nothing." 

" Do you know what is become of Orlick ?" 

" I should think from the colour of his clothes that 
he is working in the quarries." 

" Of course you have seen him then ? — Why are you 
looking at that dark tree in the lane ? " 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 277 

"I saw him there, on the night she died." 

'" That was not the last time either, Biddy ?" 

"No; I have seen him there, since we have been 
walking here. — It is of no use," said Biddy, laying her 
hand upon my arm, as I was for running out, ' ' you 
know I would not deceive you ; he was not there a 
minute, and he is gone." 

It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was 
still pursued by this fellow, and I felt inveterate against 
him. I told her so, and told her that I would spend any 
money or take any pains to drive him out of that 
country. By degrees she led me into more temperate 
talk, and she told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe 
never complained of anything— she didn't say, of me ; 
she had no need; I knew what she meant — but ever did 
his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet 
tongue, and a gentle heart. 

" Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him," 
said I : " and Biddy, we must often speak of these things, 
for of course I shall be often down here now. I am not 
going to leave poor Joe alone." 

Biddy said never a single word. 

" Biddy, don't you hear me ?" 

"Yes, Mr. Pip." 

" Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip — which 
appears to me to be in bad taste, Biddy — what do you 
mean ?" 

" What do I mean ?" asked Biddy, timidly. 

"Biddy," said I, in a virtuously self -asserting man- 
ner, "I must request to know what you mean by 
this?" 

"By this?" said Biddy. 

" Now, don't echo," I retorted. " You used not to 
echo, Biddy." 

" Used not!" said Biddy. " Mr. Pip! Used! " 

Well ! I rather thought I would give up that point too. 
After another silent turn in the garden, I fell back on 
the main position. 

"Biddy," said I, "I made a remark respecting my 
coming down here often, to see Joe, which you received 
with a marked silence. Have the goodness, Biddy, to 
tell me why." 

" Are you quite sure, then, that you will come to see 
him often? " asked Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden 



280 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

forward to look at the ground, and then throwing his 
head back to look at the ceiling, " what do you sup- 
pose you are living at the rate of ? " 

"At the rate of, sir?" 

" At," repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceil- 
ing, "the — rate — of?" And then looked all round the 
room, and paused with his pocket-handkerchief in his 
hand, half way to his nose. 

I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had 
thoroughly destroyed any slight notion I might ever 
have had of their bearings. Reluctantly I confessed 
myself quite unable to answer the question. This re- 
ply seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, "I 
thought so ! " and blew his nose vsath an air of 
satisfaction. 

"Now, I have asked you a question, my friend," 
said Mr. Jaggers. "Have you anything to ask me ?" 

"Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask 
you several questions, sir ; but I remember your pro- 
hibition." 

" Ask one," said Mr. Jaggers. 

" Is my benef actor to be made known to me to-day ? " 

"No. Ask another." 

"Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon ?" 

"Waive that, a moment," said Mr. Jaggers, "and 
ask another." 

I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no 
possible escape from the inquiry, " Have — I — anything 
to receive, sir ? " On that Mr. Jaggers said triumph- 
antly, " I thought we should come to it ! " and called to 
Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick 
appeared, handed it in, and disappeared. 

"Now, Mr. Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, " attend, if you 
please. You have been drawing pretty freely here ; 
your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick's cash- 
book ; but you are in debt, of course ?" 

"lam afraid I must say yes, sir." 

" You know you must say yes ; don't you ?" said Mr. 
Jaggers. 

"Yes, sir." 

"I don't ask you what you owe, because you don't 
know ; and if you did know, you wouldn't tell me ; you 
would say less. Yes, yes, my friend," cried Mr. Jag- 
gers, waving his forefinger to stop me, as I made a show 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 281 

of protesting : " it's likely enough that you think you 
wouldn't, but you would. You'll excuse me, but I know 
better than you. Now, take this piece of paper in 
your hand. You have got it ? Very good. Now, un- 
fold it and tell me what it is." 

"This is a bank-note," said I, "for five hundred 
pounds." 

"That is a bank-note," repeated Mr. Jaggers, "for 
five hundred pounds. And a very handsome sum of 
money too, 1 think. You consider it so?" 

"How could I do otherwise ?" 

" Ah ! But answer the question," said Mr. Jaggers. 

"Undoubtedly." 

" You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of 
money. Now, that handsome sum of money, Pip, is 
your own. It is a present to you on this day, in earnest 
of your expectations. And at the rate of that hand- 
some sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, 
you are to live until the donor of the whole appears. 
That is to say? you will now take your money affairs en- 
tirely into your own hands, and you will draw from 
Wemmick one hundred and twenty-five pounds per 
quarter, until you are in communication with the 
fountain-head, and no longer with the mere agent. As 
I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute 
my instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think 
them injudicious, but I am not paid for giving any 
opinion on their merits." 

I was beginning to express my gratitude to my bene- 
factor for the great liberality with which I was treated, 
when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. "I am not paid, Pip," 
said he coolly, " to carry your words to any one;" and 
then gathered up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up 
the object, and stood frowning at his boots as if he 
suspected them of designs against him. 

After a pause, I hinted: 

" There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which 
you desired me to waive for a moment. I hope I am 
doing nothing wrong in asking it again ?" 

"What is it ?" said he. 

I might have known that he would never help me out; 
but it took me aback to have to shape the question 
afresh, as if it were quite new. "Is it likely," I said, 
after hesitating, " that my patron, the fountain-head 



282 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon " there I 

delicately stopped. 

"Will soon what ?" asked Mr. Jaggers. "That's no 
question as it stands, you know." 

"Will soon come to London," said I, after casting 
about for a precise form of words, " or summon me any- 
where else ?" 

"Now here," replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the 
first time with his dark deep-set eyes, "we must revert 
to the evening when we first encountered one another 
in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip ?" 

"You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years 
hence when that person appeared." 

"Just so," said Mr. Jaggers; "that's my answer." 

As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath 
come quicker in my strong desire to get something out 
of him. And as I felt that it came quicker, and as I felt 
that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I had less 
chance than ever of getting anything out of him. 

"Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. 
Jaggers ? " 

Mr. Jaggers shook his head — not in negativing the 
question, but in altogether negativing the notion that he 
could anyhow be got to answer it — and the two horrible 
casts of the twitched faces looked, when my eyes strayed 
up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their sus- 
pended attention, and were going to sneeze. 

" Come! " said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his 
legs with the backs of his warmed hands, " I'll be plain 
with you, my friend Pip. That's a question I must not 
be asked. You'll understand that, better, when I tell 
you it's a question that might compromise me. Come ! 
I'Jl go a little further with you; I'll say something more." 

He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he 
was able to rub the calves of his legs in the pause he 
made. 

"When that person discloses, "said Mr. Jaggers, 
straightening himself, "you and that person will settle 
your own affairs. When that person discloses, my part 
in this business will cease and determine. When thai 
person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know 
anything about it. And that's all I have got to say." 

We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, 
and looked thoughtfully at the floor. From this last 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 283 

speech I derived the notion that Miss Havisham, for 
some reason or no reason, had not taken him into her 
confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he 
resented this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he 
really did object to that scheme, and would have noth- 
ing to do with it. When I raised my eyes again, I found 
that he had been shrewdly looking at me all the time, 
and was doing so still. 

" If that is all you have to say, sir," I remarked, "there 
can be nothing left for me to say." 

He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief -dreaded 
watch, and asked me where I was going to dine ? I re- 
plied at my own chambers, with Herbert. As a neces- 
sary sequence, I asked him if he would favour us with 
his company, and he promptly accepted the invitation. 
But he insisted on walking home with me, in order that 
I might make no extra preparation for him, and first he 
had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had his 
hands to wash. So, I said I would go into the outer 
office and talk to Wemmick. 

The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had 
come into my pocket, a thought had come into my head 
which had been often there before; and it appeared to 
me that Wemmick was a good person to advise with, 
concerning such thought. 

He had already locked up his safe, and made prepara- 
tions for going home. He had left his desk, brought 
out his two greasy office candlesticks and stood them in 
line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to 
be extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put his hat 
and great-coat ready, and was beating himself all over 
the chest with his safe-key, as an athletic exercise after 
business. 

" Mr. Wemmick," said I, " I want to ask your opiniohi. 
I am very desirous to serve a friend." 

Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, 
as if his opinion were dead against any fatal weakness 
of that sort. 

" This friend," I pursued, " is trying to get on in com- 
mercial life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and 
disheartening to make a beginning. Now, I want some- 
how to help him to a beginning." 

" With money down?" said Wemmick, in a tone drier 
than any sawdust. 



284 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"With some money down/' I replied, for an uneasy 
remembrance shot across me of that symmetrical bundle 
of papers at home; " with some money down, and per- 
haps some anticipation of my expectations." 

"Mr. Pip/' said Wemmick, "I should like just to run 
over with you on my fingers, if you please, the names 
of the various bridges up as high as Chelsea Reach. 
Let's see; there's London, one; South wark, two; Black- 
friars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vaux- 
hall, six." He had checked off each bridge in its turn, 
with the handle of his safe-key on the palm of his hand. 
"There's as many as six, you see, to choose from." 

" I don't understand you," said I. 

"Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip," returned Wemmick, 
"and take a walk upon your bridge, and pitch your 
money into the Thames over the centre arch of your 
bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with 
it, and you may know the end of it too — but it's a less 
pleasant and profitable end." 

I could have posted a newspaper in his month, he 
made it so wide after saying this. 

"This is very discouraging," said I. 

"Meant to be so," said Wemmick. 

"Then is it your opinion," I inquired, with some little 
indignation, "that a man should never " 

" — Invest portable property in a friend?" said Wem- 
mick. " Certainly he should not. Unless he wants to 
get rid of the friend — and then it becomes a question 
how much portable property it may be worth to get rid 
of him." 

"And that," said I, "is your deliberate opinion, Mr. 
Wemmick?" 

" That," he returned, "is my deliberate opinion in 
this office." 

"Ah!" said I, pressing him, fori thought I saw him 
near a loophole here; " but would that be your opinion at 
Walworth?" 

" Mr. Pip," he replied, with gravity, " Walworth is one 
place, and this office is another. Much as the Aged is 
one person, and Mr. Jaggers is another. They must not 
be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments 
must be taken at Walworth; none but my official senti- 
ments can be taken in this office." 

"Very well," said I, much relieved, "then I shall 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 285 

look you up at Walworth, you may depend upon it." 
" Mr. Pip/' he returned, "you will be welcome there, 
in a private and personal capacity." 

We had held this conversation in a low voice, well- 
knowing my guardian's ears to be the sharpest of the 
sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway, towelling 
his hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and stood by 
to snuff out the candles. We all three went into the 
street together, and from the door-step Wemmick turned 
his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours. 

I could not help wishing more than once that evening, 
that Mr. Jaggers had had an Aged in Gerrard-street, 
or a Stinger, or a Something, or a Somebody, to unbend 
his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable consider- 
ation on a twenty -first birthday, that coming of age at 
all seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and 
suspicious world as he made of it. He was a thousand 
times better informed and cleverer than Wemmick, and 
yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick 
to dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely 
melancholy, because, after he was gone, Herbert 
said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the fire, that he 
thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten 
the details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



DEEMING Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wem- 
mick's Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next 
ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle. 
On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union 
Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by 
this show of defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, 
and was admitted in a most pacific manner by the Aged. 

"My son, sir," said the old man, after securing the 
drawbridge, " rather had it in his mind that you might 
happen to drop in, and he left word that he would soon 
be home from his afternoon's walk. He is very regular 
in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, 
is my son." 

I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself 
might have nodded, and we went in and sat down by 
the fireside. 



286 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" You made acquaintance with my son, sir/' said the 
old man, in his chirping way, while he warmed his 
hands at the blaze, "at his office, I expect ?" I nodded. 
" Hah ! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand 
at his business, sir ?" I nodded hard. "Yes; so they 
tell me. His business is the Law?" I nodded harder. 
" Which makes it more surprising in my son," said the 
old man, "for he was not brought up to the Law, but to 
the Wine-Coopering." 

Curious to know how the old gentleman stood in- 
formed concerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I 
roared that name at him. He threw me into the great- 
est confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a 
very sprightly manner, "No, to be sure; you're right." 
And to this hour I have not the faintest notion what he 
meant, or what joke he thought I had made. 

As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, 
without making some other attempt to interest him, I 
shouted an inquirv whether his own calling in life had 
been " the Wine-Coopering." By dint of straining that 
term out of myself several times and tapping the old 
gentleman on the chest to associate it with him, I at 
last succeeded in making my meaning understood. 

" No," said the old gentleman; " the warehousing, the 
warehousing. First, over yonder;" he appeared to 
mean up the chimney, but I believe he intended to refer 
me to Liverpool; " and then in the City of London here. 
However, having an infirmity — for I am hard of hear- 
ing, sir " 

I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment. 

" — Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity com- 
ing upon me, my son he went into the Law, and he 
took charge of me, and he by little and little made out 
this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to 
what you said, you know," pursued the old man, again 
laughing heartily, " what I say is, No, to be sure; you're 
right." 

I was modestly wondering whether my utmost in- 
genuity would have enabled me to say anything that 
would have amused him half as much as this imaginary 
pleasantry when I was startled by a sudden click in the 
wall on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumb- 
ling open of a little wooden flap with "John" upon it. 
The old man, following my eyes, cried with great tri- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS 287 

umph, " My son's come home!" and we both went out 
to the drawbridge. 

It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a 
salute to me from the other side of the moat, when we 
might have shaken hands across it with the greatest 
ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the draw- 
bridge, that I made no offer to assist him, but stood 
quiet until Wemmick had come across, and had pre- 
sented me to Miss Skiffins: a lady by whom he was 
accompanied. 

Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, 
like her escort, in the post-office branch of the service. 
She might have been some two or three years younger 
than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed of 
portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist 
upward, both before and behind, made her figure very 
like a boy's kite; and I might have pronounced her 
gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves a 
little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good 
sort of fellow, and showed a high regard for the Aged. I 
was not long in discovering that she was a frequent 
visitor at the Castle; for, on our going in, and my com- 
plimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for 
announcing himself to the Aged, he begged me to give 
my attention for a moment to the other side of the 
chimney and disappeared. Presently another click 
came, and another little door tumbled open with ' Miss 
Skiffins 'on it; then Miss Skiffins shut up and John 
tumbled open; then Miss Skiffins and John both tumbled 
open together, and finally shut up together. On Wem- 
mick's return from working these mechanical appli- 
ances, I expressed the great admiration with which I re- 
garded them, and he said, "Well, you know they're 
both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And by George, 
sir, it's a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people 
who come to this gate, the secret of those pulls is only 
known to the Aged, Miss Skiffins, and me! " 

"And Mr. Wemmick made them," added Miss Skif- 
fins, " with his own hands out of his own head." 

While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she 
retained her green gloves during the evening as an out- 
ward and visible sign that there was company), Wem- 
mick invited me to take a walk with him round the 
property, and see how the island looked in winter-time, 



288 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Thinking that he did this to give me an opportunity of 
taking his Walworth sentiments, I seized the opportu- 
nity as soon as we were out of the Castle. 

Having thought of the matter with care, I approached 
my subject as if I had never hinted at it before. I in- 
formed Wemmick that I was anxious in behalf of Her- 
bert Pocket, and I told him how we had at first met, and 
how we had fought. I glanced at Herbert's home, and 
at his character, and at his having no means but such 
as he was dependent on his father for: those uncertain 
and unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had de- 
rived in my first rawness and ignorance from his soci- 
ety, and I confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid 
them, and that he might have done better without me 
and my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham in the 
background at a great distance, I still hinted at the pos- 
sibility of my having competed with him in his pros- 
pects, and at the certainty of his possessing a generous 
soul, and being far above any mean distrusts, retalia- 
tions, or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wem- 
mick), and because he was my young companion and 
friend, and I had a great affection for him, I wished 
my own good fortune to reflect some rays upon him, 
and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick's experi- 
ence and knowledge of men and affairs, how I could 
best try with my resources to help Herbert to some 
present income — say of a hundred a year, to keep him 
in good hope and heart — and gradually to buy him on 
to some small partnership. I begged Wemmick, in 
conclusion, to understand that my help must always be 
rendered without Herbert's knowledge or suspicion, and 
that there was no one else in the world with whom I 
could advise. I wound up by laying my hand upon his 
shoulder, and saying, "I can't help confiding in you, 
though I know it must be troublesome to you; but that 
is your fault, in having ever brought me here." 

Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said 
with a kind of start, " Well, you know, Mr. Pip, I must 
tell you one thing. This is devilish good of you." 

" Say you'll help me to be good, then," said I. 

" Ecod," replied Wemmick, shaking his head, " that's 
not my trade." 

" Nor is this your trading place," said I. f l 

" You are right," he returned. " You hit the nail on 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 289 

the head, Mr. Pip, I'll put on my considering cap 5 and 
I think all you want to do, may be done by degrees. 
Skiffins (that's her brother) is an accountant and agent. 
I'll look him up and go to work for you." 

" I thank you ten thousand times." 

" On the contrary," said he, " I thank you, for though 
we are strictly in our private and personal capacity, 
still it may be mentioned that there are Newgate cob- 
webs about, and it brushes them away." 

After a little further conversation to the same effect, 
we returned into the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins 
preparing tea. The responsible duty of making the 
toast was delegated to the Aged, and that excellent old 
gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to be in 
some danger of melting his eyes. It was no nominal 
meal that we were going to make, but a vigorous reality. 
The Aged prepared such a haystack of buttered toast, 
that I could scarcely see him over it as it simmered on 
a,n iron stand hooked on to the top-bar ; while Miss 
Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that the pig in the 
back premises became strongly excited, and repeatedly 
expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment. 

The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired 
at the right moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off 
from the rest of Walworth as if the moat were thirty 
feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed the 
tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling 
open of John and Miss Skiffins: which little doors were 
a prey to some spasmodic infirmity that made me sym- 
pathetically uncomfortable until I got used to it. I in- 
ferred from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins's 
arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday 
night ; and I rather suspected that a classic brooch she 
wore, representing the profile of an undesirable female 
with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a 
piece of portable property that had been given her by 
Wemmick. 

We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in pro- 
portion, and it was delightful to see how warm and 
greasy we all got after it. The Aged, especially, might 
have passed for some clean old chief of a savage tribe, 
just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins 
— in the absence of the little servant who, it seemed, 
retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday afternoons 
vol. i, f$ 



290 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

— washed up the tea-things in a trifling, lady-like ama- 
teur manner that compromised none of us. Then she 
put on her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and 
Wemmick said, " Now Aged Parent, tip us the paper." 

Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his 
spectacles out, that this was according to custom, and 
that it gave the old gentleman infinite satisfaction to 
read the news aloud. " I won't offer any apology," said 
Wemmick, "for he isn't capable of many pleasures — 
are you, Aged P. ? " 

"All right, John, all right," returned the old man, 
seeing himself spoken to. 

"Only tip him a nod every now and then when he 
looks off his paper," said Wemmick, " and he'll be as 
happy as a king. We are all attention, Aged One." 

"All right, John, all right!" returned the cheerful 
old man: so busy and so pleased, that it really was quite 
charming. 

The Aged's reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. 
Wopsle's great-aunt's, with the pleasanter peculiarity 
that it seemed to come through a keyhole. As he 
wanted the candles close to him, and as he was always 
on the verge of putting either his head or the news- 
paper into them, he required as much watching as a 
powder-mill. But Wemmick was equally untiring and 
gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on, quite un- 
conscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked 
at us, we all expressed the greatest interest and amaze- 
ment and nodded until he resumed again. 

As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and 
as I sat in shadowy corner, I observed a slow and 
gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick's mouth, power- 
fully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing 
his arm round Miss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I 
saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins: 
but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him 
with the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it 
were an article of dress, and with the greatest deliber- 
ation laid it on the table before her. Miss Skiffins's 
composure while she did this was one of the most re- 
markable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have 
thought the act consistent with abstraction of mind, I 
should have deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it 
mechanically. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 291 

By-and-by, I noticed Wemmick's arm beginning to 
disappear again, and gradually fading out of view. 
Shortly afterwards his mouth began to widen again. 
After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite 
enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear 
on the other side of Miss Skifflns. Instantly, Miss Skif- 
fins stopped it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took 
off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid it on the 
table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, 
I am justified in stating that during the whole time of 
the Aged's reading, Wemmick's arm was straying from 
the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss 
Skiffins. 

At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. 
This was the time for Wemmick to produce a little 
kettle, a tray of glasses, and a black bottle with a por- 
celain topped cork, representing some clerical dignity 
of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of these 
appliances we all had something warm to drink: includ- 
ing the Aged, who was soon awake again. Miss Skif- 
fins mixed, and I observed that she and Wemmick 
drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than 
to offer to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circum- 
stances I thought I had best go first: which I did, taking 
a cordial leave of the Aged, and having passed a pleasant 
evening. 

Before a week was out, I received a note from Wem- 
mick, dated Walworth, stating that he hoped he had 
made some advance in that matter appertaining to 
our private and personal capacities, and that he would 
be glad if I could come and see him again upon it. 
So, I went out to Walworth again, and yet again, and 
yet again, and I saw him by appointment in phe City 
several times, but never held any communication with 
him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The up- 
shot was, that we found a worthy young merchant or 
shipping-broker, not long established in business, who 
wanted intelligent help, and who wanted capital, and 
who in due course of time and receipt would want a 
partner. Between him and me, secret articles were 
signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I paid 
him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged 
for sundry other payments: some, to fall due at certain 
dates out of my income; some, contingent on my com- 



292 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

ing into my property. Miss Skiffins's brother conducted 
the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it throughout, 
but never appeared in it. 

The whole business was so cleverly managed, that 
Herbert had not the least suspicion of my hand being 
in it. I never shall forget the radiant face with which 
he came home one afternoon, and told me as a mighty 
piece of news, of his having fallen in with one Clar- 
riker (the young merchant's name), and of Clarriker's 
having shown an extraordinary inclination towards 
him, and of his belief that the opening had come at last. 
Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face 
brighter, he must have thought me a more and more 
affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in 
restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so 
happy. At length the thing being done, and that day 
he having entered Clarriker's House, and he having 
talked to me for a whole evening in a flush of pleasure 
and success, I did really cry in good earnest when I 
went to bed, to think that my expectations had done 
some good to somebody. 

A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, 
now opens on my view. But, before I proceed to nar- 
rate it, and before I pass on to all the changes it in- 
volved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not 
much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



IF that staid old house near the Green at Richmond 
should ever come to be haunted when I am dead, it 
will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O the many, 
many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit 
within me haunted that house when Estella lived there! 
Let my body be where it would, my spirit was always 
wandering, wandering, wandering, about that house. 

The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brand- 
ley by name, was a widow, with one daughter several 
years older than Estella. The mother looked young 
and the daughter looked old; the mother's complexion 
was pink, and the daughter's was yellow; the mother 
set up for frivolity, and the daughter for theology. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 293 

They were in what is called a good position, and visited, 
and were visited by numbers of people. Little, if 
any, community of feeling subsisted between them and 
Estella, but the understanding was established that 
they were necessary to her, and that she was necessary 
to them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss 
Havisham's before the time of her seclusion. 

In Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's 
house, I suffered every kind and degree of torture that 
Estella could cause me. The nature of my relations 
with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity with- 
out placing me on terms of favour, conduced to my 
distraction. She made use of me to tease other ad- 
mirers, and she turned the very familiarity between 
herself and me, to the account of putting a constant 
slight on my devotion to her. If I had been her secre- 
tary, steward, half-brother, poor relation — if I had been 
a younger brother of her appointed husband — I could 
not have seemed to myself, further from my hopes 
when I was nearest to her. The privilege of calling 
her by her name and hearing her call me by mine, be- 
came under the circumstances an aggravation of my 
trials, and while I think it likely that it almost mad- 
dened her other lovers, I knew too certainly that it 
almost maddened me. 

She had admirers without end. No doubt my jeal- 
ousy made an admirer of every one who went near her; 
but there were more than enough of them without that. 

I saw her often at "Richmond, I heard of her often in 
town, and I used often to take her and the Brandley's 
on the water ; there were pic-nics, fete days, plays, 
operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures, through 
which I pursued her— and they were all miseries to me. 
I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet 
my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was 
harping on the happiness of having her with me unto 
death. 

Throughout this part of our intercourse — and it lasted, 
as will presently be seen, for what I then thought a 
long time- — she habitually reverted to that tone which 
expressed that our association was forced upon us. 
There were other times when she would come to a sudden 
check in this tone and in all her many tones, and would 
seem to pity me. 






294 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"Pip, Pip," she said one evening, coming to such a 
check, when we sat apart at a darkening window of 
the house in Richmond; "will you never take warn- 
ing?" 

"Of what?" 
"Of me." 

" Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, 
Estella?" 

" Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you 
are blind." 

I should have replied that Lovq was commonly re- 
puted blind, but for the reason that I always was 
restrained — and this was not the least of my miseries — 
by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself 
upon her, when she knew that she could not choose but 
obey Miss Havisham. My dread always was, that this 
knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy disad- 
vantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a 
rebellious struggle in her bosom. 

"At any rate," said I, "I have no warning given me 
just now ; for you wrote to me to come to you, this time." 
" That s true," said Estella, with a cold careless smile 
that always chilled me. 

After looking at the twilight without, for a little 
while, she went on to say: 

" The time has come round when Miss Havisham 
wishes to have me for a day at Satis. You are to take 
me there, and bring me back if you will. She would 
rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving 
my maid, for she has a sensitive horror of being talked 
of by such people. Can you take me?" 
" Can I take you," Estella? " 

"You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you 
please. You are to pay all charges out of my purse. 
You hear the condition of your going ? " 
"And must obey," said I. 

This was all the preparation I received for that visit, 
or for others like it: Miss Havisham never wrote to me, 
nor had I ever so much as seen her handwriting. We 
went down on the next day but one, and we found he 
in the room where I had first beheld her, and it is need 
less to add that there was no change in Satis House 

She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than 
she had been when I last saw them together ; I repeat 



e 

; 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 295 

the word advisedly, for there was something positively 
dreadful in the energy of her looks and embraces. She 
hung upon Estella' s beauty, hung upon her words, hung 
upon her gestures, and sat mumbling her own tremb- 
ling fingers while she looked at her, as though she were 
devouring the beautiful creature she had reared. 

From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance 
that seemed to pry into my heart and probe its wounds. 
" How does she use you, Pip; how does she use you ? " 
she asked me again, with her witch-like eagerness, 
even in Estella's hearing. But, when we sat by her 
flickering fire at night, she was most weird ; for then, 
keeping Estella's hand drawn through her arm and 
clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her by dint 
of referring back to what Estella had told her in her 
regular letters, the names and conditions of the men 
whom she had fascinated; and as Miss Havisham dwelt 
upon this roll, with the intensity of a mind mortally 
hurt and diseased, she sat with her other hand on her 
crutch stick, and her chin on that, and her wan 
bright eyes glaring at me, a very spectre. 

I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter 
the sense of dependence, even of degradation that it 
awakened — I saw in this, that Estella was set to wreak 
Miss Havisham's revenge on men, and that she was not 
to be given to me until she had gratified it for a term. 
I saw in this, a reason for her being beforehand 
assigned to me. Sending her out to attract and tor- 
ment and do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with the 
malicious assurance that she was beyond the reach of 
all admirers, and that all who staked upon that cast 
were secured to lose. I saw in this, that I, too, was 
tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while the 
prize was reserved for me. I saw in this, the reason 
for my being staved off so long, and the reason for my 
late guardian's declining to commit himself to the 
formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word, I saw 
in this, Miss Havisham as I had her then and there be- 
fore my eyes, and always had had her before my eyes; 
and I saw in this, the distinct shadow of the darkened 
and unhealthy house in which her life was hidden from 
the sun. 

The candles that lighted that room of hers \* ere placed 
in sconces on the wall. They were high from the ground, 






296 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

and they burnt with the steady dulness of artificial 
light in air that is seldom renewed. As I looked round 
at them, and at the pale gloom they made, and at the 
stopped clock, and at the withered articles of bridal 
dress upon the table and the ground, and at her own 
awful figure with its ghostly reflection thrown large 
by the fire upon the ceiling and the wall, I saw in 
everything the construction that my mind had come to, 
repeated and thrown back to me. My thoughts passed 
into the great room across the landing where the table 
was spread, and I saw it written as it were, in the falls 
of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings 
of the spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice 
as they betook their little quickened hearts behind 
the panels, and in the gropings and pausings of the 
beetles on the floor. 

It happened on the occasion of this visit that some 
sharp words arose between Estella and Miss Havi- 
sham. It was the first time I had ever seen them 
opposed. 

We were seated by the fire, as just now described, 
and Miss Havisham still had Estella's arm drawn 
through her own, and still clutched Estella' s hand in 
hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. 
She had shown a proud impatience more than once be- 
fore, and had rather endured that fierce affection than 
accepted or returned it. 

" What ! " said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon 
her, " are you tired of me ?" 

" Only a little tired of myself," replied Estella, dis- 
engaging her arm, and moving to the great chimney- 
piece, where she stood looking down at the fire. 

"Speak the truth, you ingrate!" cried Miss Havi- 
sham, impatiently striking her stick upon the floor; 
" you are tired of me." 

Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and 
again looked down at the fire. Her graceful figure and 
her beautiful face expressed a self-possessed indif- 
ference to the wild heat of the other, that was almost 
cruel. 

"You stock and stone I" exclaimed Miss Havisham. 
" You cold, cold heart ! " 

"What ?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of in- 
difference as she leaned against the great chimney- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Wl 

piece and only moving her eyes; " do you reproach me 
for being cold? You?" 

" Are you not? " was the fierce retort. 

"You should know," said Estella. "I am what you 
have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; 
take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take 
me." 

"O, look at her, look at her!" cried Miss Havisham, 
bitterly, "Look at her, so hard and thankless, on the 
hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into 
this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its 
stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness 
upon her!" 

" At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella, 
"for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it 
was as much as I could do. But what would you have? 
You have been very good to me, and I owe everything 
to you. What would you have?" 

" Love," replied the other. 

"You have it." 

" I have not," said Miss Havisham. 

" Mother by adoption," retorted Estella, never de- 
parting from the easy grace of her attitude, never rais- 
ing her voice as the other did, never yielding either to 
anger or tenderness, "Mother by adoption, I have said 
that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely 
yours. All that you have given me, is at your com- 
mand to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. 
And if you ask me to give you what you never gave 
me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibili- 
ties." 

"Did I never give her love!" cried Miss Havisham, 
turning wildly to me. " Did I never give her a burning 
love, inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from 
sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call 
me mad, let her call me mad!" 

"Why should I call you mad," returned Estella, "I, 
of all people? Does any one live, who knows what set 
purposes you have, half as well as I do? Does anyone 
live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half 
as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on 
the little stool that is even now beside you there, learn- 
ing your lessons and looking up into your face, when 
your face was strange and frightened me!" 



m GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" Soon forgotten! " moaned Miss Havisham. " Times 
soon forgotten ! " 

"No, not forgotten/' retorted Estella. "Not for* 
gotten, but treasured up in my memory. When have 
you found me false to your teaching? When have you 
found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you 
found me giving^ admission here/' she touched her 
bosom with her hand, "to anything that you excluded? 
Be just to me." 

"So proud, so proud!'' moaned Miss Havisham, 
pushing away her grey hair with both her hands. 

"Who taught me to be proud?" returned Estella. 
" Who praised me when I learnt my lessons? " 

"So hard, so hard!" moaned Miss Havisham, with 
her former action. 

"Who taught me to be hard?" returned Estella. 
" Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?" 

" But to be proud and hard to me ! " Miss Havisham 
quite shrieked, as she stretched out her arms. " Estella, 
Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard to me ! ' 

Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of 
calm wonder, but was not otherwise disturbed; when 
the moment was past, she looked down at the fire 
again. 

" I cannot think," said Estella, raising her eyes after 
a silence "why you should be so unreasonable when I 
come to see you after a separation. I have never for- 
gotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never 
been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never 
shown any weakness that I can charge myself with." 

"Would it be weakness to return my love?" ex- 
claimed Miss Havisham. "But yes, yes, she would 
call it so!" 

" I begin to think," said Estella, in a musing way, 
after another moment of calm Vbnder, "that I almost 
understand how this comes about. If you had brought 
up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confine- 
ment of these rooms, and had never let her know that 
there was such a thing as the daylight by which she 
has never once seen your face — if you had done that, 
and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand 
the daylight and know all about it, you would have 
been disappointed and angry?" 

Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 299 

making a low moaning, and swaying herself on her 
chair, but gave no answer. 

"Or," said Estella, " — which is a nearer case — if you 
had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with 
your utmost energy and might, that there was such a 
thing as daylight, but that it ' was made to be her 
enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against 
it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her; — 
if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had 
wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she 
could not do it, you would have been disappointed and 
angry?" 

Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I 
could not see her face), but still made no answer. 

"So," said Estella, "I must be taken as I have been 
made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, 
but the two together make me." 

Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, 
upon the floor, among the faded bridal relics with 
which it was strewn. I took advantage of the moment 
— I had sought one from the first- 1 — to leave the room, 
after beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a move- 
ment of my hand. When I left, Estella was yet stand- 
ing by the great chimney-piece, just as she had stood 
throughout. Miss Havisham's grey hair was all adrift 
upon the ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and 
was a miserable sight to see. 

It was with a depresssed heart that I walked in the 
starlight for an hour and more, about the court-yard, 
and about the brewery, and about the ruined garden. 
When I at last took courage to return to the room, I 
found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee taking 
up some stitches in one of those old articles of dress 
that were dropping to pieces, and of which I have often 
been reminded since by the faded tatters of old ban- 
ners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. After- 
wards, Estella and I played cards, as of yore — only we 
were skilful now, and played French games — and so 
the evening wore away, and I went to bed. 

I lay in that separate building across the court-yard. 
It was the first time I had ever lain down to rest in 
Satis House, and sleep refused to come near me. A 
thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on 
this side of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, 



300 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

at the foot, behind the half -opened door of the dressing- 
room, in the dressing-rooom, in the room overhead, in 
the room beneath — everywhere. At last, when the 
night was slow to creep on towards two o'clock, I felt 
that I absolutely could no longer bear the place as a 
place to lie down in,' and that I must get up. I 
therefore got up and put on my clothes, ahd went 
out across the yard into the long stone passage, 
designing to gain the outer court-yard and walk 
there for the relief of my mind. But I was no sooner 
in the passage than I extinguished my candle; for, 
I saw Miss Havisham going along it in a ghostly 
manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a distance, 
and saw her go up the staircase. She carried a bare 
candle in her hand, which she had probably taken 
from one of the sconces in her own room, and was a 
most unearthly object by its light. Standing at the 
bottom of the staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the 
feast-chamber, without seeing her open the door, and 
I heard her walking there, and so across into her own 
room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the 
low cry. After a time, I tried in the dark both to get 
out, and to go back, but I could do neither until some 
streaks of day strayed in and showed me where to lay 
my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I 
went to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her foot- 
step, saw her candle pass above, and heard her cease- 
less low cry. 

Before we left next day, there was no revival of the 
difference between her and Estella, nor was it ever 
revived on any similar occasion; and there were four 
similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. 
Nor, did Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella 
in anywise change, except that I believed it to 
have something like fear infused among its former 
characteristics. 

It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without 
putting Bentley Drummle's name upon it; or I would, 
very gladly. 

On a certain occasion when the Finches were as- 
sembled in force, and when good feeling was being 
promoted in the usual manner by nobody's agreeing 
with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove 
to order, forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 301 

a lady; which, according to the solemn constitution of 
the society, it was the brute's turn to do that day. I 
thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the 
decanters were going round, but as there was no love 
lost between us, that might easily be. What was my 
indignant surprise when he called upon the company 
to pledge him to " Estella !" 

"Estella who?" said I. 

"Never you mind," retorted Drummle. 

"Estella of where?" said I. "You are bound to say 
of where." Which he was, as a Finch. 

"Of Richmond, gentlemen," said Drummle, putting 
me out of the question, "and a peerless beauty." 

Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean miser- 
able idiot! I whispered Herbert. 

" I know that lady," said Herbert, across the table, 
when the toast had been honoured. 

"Do you?" said Drummle. 

" And so do I," I added, with a scarlet face. 

"Do you?" said Drummle. " Oh, Lord!" 

This was the only retort — except glass or crockery — 
that the heavy creature was capable of making; but, 
I became as highly incensed by it as if it had been 
barbed with wit, and I immediately rose in my place 
and said that I could not but regard it as being like the 
honourable Finch's impudence to come down to that 
Grove — we always talked about coming down to that 
Grove, as a neat Parliamentary term of expression — 
down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom he knew 
nothing. Mr. Drummle upon this, starting up, de- 
manded to know what I meant by that? Whereupon, 
I made him the extreme reply that I believed he knew 
where I was to be found. 

Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get 
on without blood, after this, was a question on which 
the Finches were divided. The debate upon it grew so 
lively, indeed, that at least six more honourable mem- 
bers told six more, during the discussion, that they be- 
lieved they knew where they were to be found. How- 
ever, it was decided at last (the Grove being a Court of 
Honour) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight 
a certificate from the lady, importing that he had the 
honour of her acquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his 
regret, as a gentleman and a Finch, for "having been 



302 GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 

betrayed into a warmth which." Next day was ap- 
pointed for the production (lest our honour should take 
cold from delay), and next day Drummle appeared with 
a polite little avowal in Estella' s hand, that she had had 
the honour of dancing with him several times. This left 
^me no course but to regret that I had been "betrayed 
linto a warmth which/' and on the whole to repudiate, 
'as untenable, the idea that I was to be found anywhere. 
Drummle and I then sat snorting at one another for an 
hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate con- 
tradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling 
was declared to have gone ahead at an amazing rate. 

I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. 
For, I cannot adequately express what pain it gave me 
to think that Estella should show any favour to a con- 
temptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below the 
average. To the present moment, I believe it to have 
been referable to some pure fire of generosity and dis- 
interestedness in my love for her, that I could not en- 
dure the thought of her stooping to that hound. No 
doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she 
had favoured; but a worthier object would have caused 
me a different kind and degree of distress. 

It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find 
out, that Drummle had begun to follow her closely, and 
that she allowed him to do it. A little while, and he 
was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed one 
another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent 
way, and Estella held him on; now with encourage- 
ment, now with discouragement, now almost flattering 
him, now openly despising him, now knowing him very 
well, now scarcely remembering who he was. 

The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to 
lying in wait, however, and had the patience of his 
tribe. Added to that, he had a blockhead confidence in 
his money and in his family greatness, which some- 
times did him good service — almost taking the place of 
concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider, 
doggedly watching Estella, outwatched many brighter 
insects, and would often uncoil himself and drop at the 
right nick of time. 

At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to 
be Assembly Balls at most places then), where Estella had 
outshone all other beauties, this blundering Drummle 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. o03 

so hung about her, and with so much toleration on 
her part, that I resolved to speak to her concerning 
him. I took the next opportunity: which was when she 
was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to take her home, and 
was sitting apart among some flowers, ready to go. I 
was with her, for I almost always accompanied them 
to and from such places. 

" Are you tired, Estella ?" 

"Rather, Pip." 

"You should be." 

" Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to 
Satis House to write before I go to sleep." 

" Recounting to-night's triumph ? " said I. "Surely 
a very poor one, Estella." 

"•What do you mean ? I didn't know there had been 
any." 

" Estella," said I, "do look at that fellow in the cor- 
ner yonder, who is looking over here at us." 

" Why should I look at him ?" returned Estella, with 
her eyes on me instead. " What is there in that fellow 
in the corner yonder — to use your words — that I need 
look at?" 

" Indeed that is the very question I want to ask you," 
said I. "For he has been hovering about you all 
night." 

" Moths and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Es- 
tella, with a glance towards him, "hover about a 
lighted candle. Can the candle help it ?" 

"No," I returned, "but cannot the Estella help it?" 

"Well!" said she laughing, after a moment, "per- 
haps. Yes. Anything you like." 

"But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched 
that you should encourage a man so generally despised 
as Drummle. You know he is despised." 

" Well ? " said she. 

" You know he is as ungainly within as without. A 
deficient, ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow." 

"Well ?" said she. 

"You know he has nothing to recommend him but 
money, and a ridiculous roll of addle-headed predeces- 
sors; now, don't you ?" 

"Well?" said she again; and each time she said it, 
she opened her lovely eyes the wider. 

To overcome the difficulty of getting past that 



304 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

monosyllable, I took it from her, and said repeating it 
with emphasis, " Well ! Then, that is why it makes me 
wretched." 

Now, if I could have believed that she favoured 
Drummle with any idea of making me — me — wretched, 
I should have been in better heart about it ; but in that 
habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the 
question, that I could believe nothing of the kind. 

" Pip" said Estella, casting her glance over the room, 
" don't be foolish about its effect on you. It may have 
its effect on others, and may be meant to have. It's 
not worth discussing." 

"Yes, it is," said I, "because I cannot bear that 
people should say ' she throws away her graces and 
attractions on a mere boor, the lowest in the crowd.' ' 

" I can bear it," said Estella. 

"Oh ! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible." 

" Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath! " said 
Estella, opening her hands. " And in his last breath 
reproached me for stooping to a boor! " 

"There is no doubt you do," said I something hur- 
riedly, " for I have seen you give him looks and smiles 
this very night, such as you never give to — me." 

" Do you want me then," said Estella, turning sud- 
denly with a fixed and serious, if not angry, look, " to 
deceive and entrap you ? " 

" Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella ?" 

" Yes, and many others — all of them but you. Here 
is Mrs. Blandley. I'll say no more." 

And now that I have given the one chapter to the 
theme that so filled my heart, and so often made it 
ache and ache again, I pass on, unhindered to the event 
that had impended over me longer yet ; the event that 
had begun to be prepared for, before I knew that the 
world held Estella, and in the days when her baby in- 
telligence was receiving its fisrt distortions from Miss 
Havisham's wasting hands. 

In the Eastern story the heavy slab that was to fall 
on the bed of state in the flush of conquest was slowly 
wrought out of the quarry, the tunnel for the rope to 
hold it in its place was slowly carried through the 
leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and fitted 
in the roof, the rope was rove to it and slowly taken 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 305 

through the miles of hollow to the great iron ring. All 
being made ready with much labour, and the hour 
come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, 
and the sharpened axe that was to sever the rope from 
the great iron ring was put into his hand, and he struck 
with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and the 
ceiling fell. So, in my case ; all the work, near and 
afar, that tended to the end, had been accomplished; 
and in an instant the blow was struck, and the roof 
of my stronghold dropped upon me. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



I WAS three-and-twenty years of age. Not another 
word had I heard to enlighten me on the subject 
of my expectations, and my twenty-third birthday was 
a week gone. We had left Barnard's Inn more than 
a year, and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were 
in Garden-court, down by the river. 

Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted com- 
pany as to our original relations, though we continued 
on the best terms. Notwithstanding my inability to 
settle to anything — which I hope arose out of the rest- 
less and incomplete tenure on which I held my means 
— I had a taste for reading, and read regularly so 
many hours a day. That matter of Herbert's was 
still progressing, and everything with me was as I 
have brought it down to the close of the last preced- 
ing chapter. 

Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. 
I was alone, and had a dull sense of being alone. 
Dispirited and anxious, long hoping that to-morrow or 
next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, 
I sadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of 
my friend. 

It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy 
and wet; mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day 
after day, a vast heavy veil had been driving over Lon- 
don from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East 
there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious 
had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had 
had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country - 
vol. i. 20 



306 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried 
away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the 
coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain 
had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just 
closed as I sat down to read had been the worst of all. 

Alterations have been made in that part of the Tem- 
ple since that time, and it has not now so lonely a char- 
acter as it had then, nor is it so exposed to the river. 
We lived at the top of the last house, and the wind 
rushing up the river shook the house that night, like 
discharges of cannon, or breakings of a sea. When the 
rain came with it and dashed against the windows, I 
thought, raising my eyes to them as they rocked, thai 
I might have fancied myself in a storm-beaten light- 
house. Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the 
chimney as though it could not bear to go out into such 
a night; and when I set the doors open and looked down 
the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out; and 
when I shaded, my face with my hands and looked 
through the black windows (opening them ever so little, 
was out of the question in the teeth of such wind and 
rain) I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out, 
and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were 
shuddering, and that the coal fires in barges on the 
river were being carried away before the wind like red- 
hot splashes in the rain. 

I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to 
close my book at eleven o'clock. As I shut it, Saint 
Paul's, and all the many church-clocks in the City- 
some leading, some accompanying, some following — 
struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by 
the wind; and I was listening, and thinking how the 
wind assailed and tore it, when I heard a footstep on 
the stair. 

What nervous folly made me start, and awfully con- 
nect it with the footstep of my dead sister, matters not. 
It was past in a moment, and I listened again, and 
heard the footstep stumble in coming on. Remembering 
then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I took up 
my reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Who- 
ever was below had stopped on seeing my lamp, for all 
was quiet. 

" There is some one down there, is there not?" I called 
out, looking down. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 307 

" Yes," said a voice from the darkness beneath. 

"What floor do you want?" 

"The top, Mr. Pip." 

"That is my name. — There is nothing the matter?" 

"Nothing the matter/' returned the voice. And the 
man came on. 

I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and 
he came slowly within its light. It was a shaded lamp, 
to shine upon a book, and its circle of light was very 
contracted; so that he was in it for a mere instant, and 
then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that 
was strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensi- 
ble air of being touched and pleased by the sight of me. 

Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that 
he was substantially dressed, but roughly; like a voyager 
by sea. That he had long iron grey hair. That his age 
was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong 
on his legs, and that he was browned and hardened by 
exposure to weather. As he ascended the last stair or 
two, and the light of my lamp included us both, I saw 
with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was holding 
out both his hands to me. 

" Pray what is your business? " I asked him. 

"My business?" he repeated, pausing. " Ah! Yes. I 
will explain my business, by your leave." 

" Do you wish to come in?" 

"Yes," he replied; "I wish to come in, Master." 

I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, 
for I resented the sort of bright and gratified recogni- 
tion that still shone in his face. I resented it, because 
it seemed to imply that he expected me to respond to 
it. But, I took him into the room I had just left, an4, 
having set the lamp on the table, asked him as civilly as 
I could to explain himself. 

He looked about him with the strangest air — an air of 
wondering pleasure, as if he had some part in the things 
he admired — and he pulled off a rough outer coat, and 
his hat. Then, I saw that his head was furrowed and 
bald, and that the long iron grey hair grew only on its 
sides. But, I saw nothing that in the least explained 
him. On the contrary, I saw him next moment, once 
more holding out both his hands to me. 

"What do you mean ?" said I, half suspecting him to 
be mad. 



308 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed 
his right hand over his head. "It's disappointing to a 
man," he said, in a coarse broken voice, " arter having 
looked for'ard so distant, and come so fur; but you're 
not to blame for that — neither on us is to blame for that. 
I'll speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, 
please." 

He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and 
covered his forehead with his large brown veinous 
hands. I looked at him attentively then, and recoiled 
a little from him; but I did not know him. 

"There's no one nigh," said he, looking over his 
shoulder; "is there ?" 

"Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at 
this time of the night, ask that question ? " said I. 

"You're a game one," he returned, shaking his head 
at me with a deliberate affection, at once most unintel- 
ligible and most exasperating; " I'm glad you've grow'd 
up, a game one ! But don't catch hold of me. You'd 
be sorry arterwards to have done it." 

I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I 
knew him ! Even yet I could not recall a single feature, 
but I knew him ! If the wind and the rain had driven 
away the intervening years, had scattered all the inter- 
vening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where 
we first stood face to face on such different levels, I 
could not have known my convict more distinctly than 
I knew him now, as he sat in the chair before the fire. 
No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to 
me; no need to take the handkerchief from his neck 
and twist it round his head; no need to hug himself with 
both his arms, and take a shivering turn across the 
room, looking back at me for recognition. I knewliim 
before he gave me one of those aids, though, a momejit 
before, I had not been conscious of remotely suspecting 
his identity. 

He came back to where I stood, and again held out 
both his hands. Not knowing what to do — for, in my 
astonishment I had lost my self-possession — I reluc- 
tantly gave him my hands. He grasped them heartily, 
raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them. 

"You acted noble, my boy," said he. "Noble, Pip! 
And I have never forgot it! " 

At a change in his manner as if he were even going 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 309 

to embrace me, I laid a hand upon his breast and put 
him away. 

" Stay ! " said I. " Keep off ! If you are grateful to 
me for what I did when I was a little child, I hope you 
have shown your gratitude by mending your way of 
life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not 
necessary. Still, however, you have found me out, 
there must be something good in the feeling that has 
brought you here, and I will not repulse you; but surely 
you must understand — I " 

My attention was so attracted by the singularity of 
his fixed look at me, that the words died away on my 
tongue. 

"You was a saying," he observed, when we had con- 
fronted one another in silence, "that surely I must 
understand. What, surely must I understand?" 

" That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse 
with you of long ago, under these different circum- 
stances. I am glad to believe you have repented and 
recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am 
glad that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have 
come to thank me. But our ways are different ways, 
none the less. You are wet, and you look weary. Will 
you drink something before you go ? " 

He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had 
stood, keenly observant of me, biting a long end of it. 
" I think," he answered, still with the end at his mouth 
and still observant of me, "that I will drink (I thank 
you) afore I go." 

There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it 
to the table near the fire, and asked him what he would 
have ? He touched one of the bottles without look- 
ing at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum- 
and-water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did 
so, but his look at me as he leaned back in his chair with 
the long draggled end of his neckerchief between his 
teeth — evidently forgotten — made my hand very diffi- 
cult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I 
saw with amazement that his eyes were full of tears. 

Up to this time I had remained standing, not to dis- 
guise that I wished him gone. But I was softened by the 
softened aspect of the man, and felt a touch of reproach. 
" I hope," said I hurriedly putting something into a glass 
for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, " that you 



310 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

will not think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had 
no intention of doing it, and I am sorry for it if I did. 
I wish you well and happy." 

As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise 
at the end of his neckerchief, dropping from his mouth 
when he opened it, and stretched out his hand. I gave 
him mine, and then he drank, and drew his sleeve across 
his eyes and forehead. 

" How are you living?" I asked him. 

" I've been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades, 
besides away in the new world/' said he: "many a 
thousand mile of stormy water off from this." 

"I hope you have done well?" 

" Fve clone wonderful well. There's others went out 
alonger me as has done well too, but no man has done 
nigh as well as me. Fm famous for it." 

" I am glad to hear it." 

" I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy." 

Without stopping to try to understand those words 
or the tone in which they were spoken, I turned off to 
a point that had just come into my mind. 

" Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to 
me," I inquired, "since he undertook that trust?" 

"'Never set eyes upon him. I warn't likely to it." 

" He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one- 
pound notes. I was a poor boy then, as you know, and 
to a poor boy they were a little fortune. But, like you, 
I have done well since, and you must let me pay them 
back. You can put them to some other poor boy's use." 
I took out my purse. 

He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and 
opened it, and he watched me as I separated two one- 
pound notes from its contents. They were clean and 
new, and I spread them out and handed them over to 
him. Still watching me, he laid them one upon the 
other, folded them long-wise, gave them a twist, set 
fire to them at the lamp, and dropped the ashes into the 
tray. 

" May I make so bold," he said then, with a smile 
that was like a frown, and with a frown that was 
like a smile, "as ask you hoiv you have done well, 
since you and me was out on them lone shivering 
marshes? " 

"How?" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 311 

"Ah!" 

" He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of 
the fire, with his heavy brown hand on the mantelshelf. 
He put a foot up to the bars, to dry and warm it, and 
the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither looked at 
it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was 
only now that I began to tremble. 

When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words 
that were without sound, I forced myself to tell him 
(though I could not N do it distinctly), that had been 
chosen to succeed to some property. 

" Might a mere warmint ask what property?" said he. 

I faltered, "I don't know." 

"Might a mere warmint ask whose property?" said 
he. 

I faltered again, " I don't know." 

" Could I make a guess, I wonder," said the Convict, 
" at your income since you come of age! As to the first 
figure now. Five? " 

With my heart beating like a' heavy hammer of dis- 
ordered action, I rose out of my chair, and stood with 
my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him. 

" Concerning a guardian, " he went on. " There ought 
to have been some guardian or such-like, whiles you 
was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As to the first 
letter of that lawyer's name now. Would it be J?" 

All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and 
its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences 
of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was 
borne down by them and had to struggle for every 
breath I drew. " Put it," he resumed, " as the employer 
of that lawyer whose name begun with a J, and might 
be Jaggers — put it as he had come over sea to Ports- 
mouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come 
on to you. ' However, you have found me out,' you says 
just now. Well! however did I find you out? Why, 
I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for 
particulars of your address. That person's name ? Why, 
Wemmick." 

I could not have spoken one word, though it had been 
to save my life. I stood, with a hand on the chair- 
back and a hand on my breast, where I seemed to 
be suffocating — I stood so, looking wildly at him, until 
I grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge 



312 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

and turn. He caught me, drew me to the sofa, put me 
up against the cushions, and bent on one knee before 
me : bringing the face that I now well remembered, 
and that I shuddered at, very near to mine. 

"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you ! 
It's me wot has done it ! I swore that time, sure as ever 
I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore 
arterwards, sure as ever I speculated and got rich, you 
should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live 
smooth; I worked hard that you should be above work. 
What odds, dear boy ? Do I tell it fur you to feel a 
obligation ? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to know as 
that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got 
his head so high that he could make a gentleman — and, 
Pip, you're him ! " 

The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I 
had of him, the repugnance with which I shrank from 
him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some 
terrible beast. 

" Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're 
my son — more to me nor any son. I've put away 
money, only for you to spend. When I was a hired-out 
shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces 
of sheep till I half forgot wot men's and women's faces 
wos like, I see yourn. I drops my knife many a time 
in that hut when I was eating my dinner or my supper, 
and I says, ' Here's the boy again, a looking at me 
whiles I eats and drinks ! ' I see you there a many 
times as plain as ever I see you on them misty marshes. 
■ Lord strike me dead ! ' I says each time — and I goes 
out in the open air to say it under the open heavens — 
' but wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that 
boy a gentleman ! ' And I done it. Why, look at you, 
dear boy ! Look at these here lodgings of yourn, fit for 
a lord ! A lord ? Ah ! You shall show money with 
lords for wagers, and beat 'em ! " 

In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I 
had been nearly fainting, he did not remark on my re- 
ception of all this. It was the one grain of relief I 
had. 

" Look'ee here ! " he went on, taking my watch out 
of my pocket, and turning towards him a ring on my 
finger, while I recoiled from his touch as if he had been 
a snake, " a gold 'un and a beauty: that's a gentleman's, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 313 

I hope ! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's 
a gentleman's, I hope ! Look at your linen; fine and 
beautiful ! Look at your clothes; better ain't to be got! 
And your books too/' turning his eyes round the room, 
"mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And 
you read 'em; don't you ? I see you'd been a reading of 
'em when I come in. Ha, ha, ha ! You shall read 'em to 
me, dear boy! And if they're in foreign languages wot 
I don't understand, I shall be just as proud as if I did." 

Again he took both my hands and put them to his 
lips, while my blood ran cold within me. 

" Don't you mind talking, Pip/' said he, after again 
drawing his sleeve over his eyes and forehead, as the 
click came in his throat which I well remembered — 
and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so 
much in earnest; "you can't do better nor keep quiet, 
dear boy. You ain't looked slowly forward to this as I 
have; you wosn't prepared for this, as I was. But didn't 
you never think it might be me ? " 

" O no, no, no," I returned. "Never, never! " 

" Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed. Never 
a soul in it but my own self and Mr. Jaggers." 

"Was there no one else? " 1 asked. 

" No," said he, with a glance of surprise : " who else 
should there be ? And, dear boy, how good-looking 
you have growed ! There's bright eyes some wheres — eh? 
Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the 
thoughts on?" 

O Estella, Estella! 

"They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy 
'em. Not that a gentleman like you, so well set up as 
you, can win 'em off of his own game; but money shall 
back you ! Let me finish wot I was telling you, dear 
boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I 
got money left me by my master (which died, and had 
been the same as me), and got my liberty and went for 
myself. In every single thing I went for, I went for 
you. 'Lord strike a blight upon it,' I says, wotever it 
was I went for, ' if it ain't for him ! ' It all prospered 
wonderful. As I giv' you to understand just now, I'm 
famous for it. It was the money left me, and the gains 
of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers — 
all for you — when he first come arter you, agreeable to 
my letter," 






314 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

O, that he had never come! That he had left me at the 
forge — far from contented, yet, by comparison, happy! 

"And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, 
look'ee here, to know in secret that I was making a 
gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists might 
fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I 
say? I says to myself, ' I'm making a better gentleman 
nor ever you'll be!' When one of 'em says to another, 
' He was a convict, a few years ago, and is a ignorant 
common fellow now, for all he's lucky,' what do I say? 
I says to myself, * If I ain't a gentleman, nor yet ain't 
got no learning, I'm the owner of such. All on you 
owns stock and land; which on you owns a brought-up 
London gentleman?' This way I kep myself a going. 
And this way I held steady afore my mind that I would 
for certain come one day and see my boy, and make 
myself known to him, on his own ground." 

He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the 
thought that for anything I knew, his hand might be 
stained with blood. 

" It warn't easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor 
yet it warn't safe. But I held to it, and the harder it 
was, the stronger I held, for I was determined, and 
my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear boy, I 
done it!" 

I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. 
Throughout, I had seemed to myself to attend more to 
the wind and the rain than to him; even now, I could 
not separate his voice from those voices, though those 
were loud and his was silfent. 

" Where will you put me?" he asked, presently. " I 
must be put somewheres, dear boy." 

"To sleep?" said I. 

"Yes. And to sleep long and sound," he answered; 
" for I've been sea-tossed and sea- washed, months and 
months." 

" My friend and companion," said I, rising from the 
sofa, "is absent; you must have his room." 

" He won't come back to-morrow; will he?" 

" No," said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite 
of my utmost efforts; "not to-morrow." 

"Because, look'ee here, dear boy," he said, dropping 
his voice, and laying a long finger on my breast in an 
impressive manner, "caution is necessary." 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 315 

" How do you mean? Caution?" 

«By G— , its Death! r 

"What's death?" 

" I was sent for life. It's death to come back. There's 
been overmuch coming back of late years, and I should 
of a certainty be hanged if took." 

Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after 
loading me with his wretched gold and silver chains for 
years, had risked his life to come to me, and I held it 
there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead of 
abhorring him; if I had been attracted to him "by the 
strongest admiration and affection, instead of shrinking 
from him with the strongest repugnance; it could have 
been no worse. On the contrary, it would have been 
better, for his preservation would then have naturally 
and tenderly addressed my heart. 

My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light 
might be seen from without, and then to close and make 
fast the doors. While I did so, he stood at the table 
drinking rum and eating biscuit; and when I saw him 
thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes at his 
meal again. It almost seemed to me as if he must 
stoop down presently, to file at his leg. 

When I had gone into Herbert's room, and had shut 
off any other communication between it and the stair- 
case tlian through the room in which our coversation 
had been held, I asked him if he would go to bed? He 
said yes, but asked me for some of my " gentleman's 
linen " to put on in the morning. I brought it out, and 
laid it ready for him, and my blood again ran cold when 
he again took me by both hands to give me good night. 

I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, 
and mended the fire in the room where we had been to- 
gether, and sat down by it, afraid to go to bed. For an 
hour or more, I remained too stunned to think; and it 
was not until I began to think, that I began fully to 
know how wrecked I was, and how the ship in which 
I had sailed was gone to pieces. 

Miss Havisham's intentions towards me, all a mere 
dream; Estella not designed for me; I only suffered in 
Satis House as a convenience, a sting for the greedy 
relations, a model with a mechanical heart to practise 
on when no other practise was at hand; those were 
the first smarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest pain 



316 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

of all — it was for the convict, guilty of I knew not 
what crimes, and liable to be taken out of those rooms 
where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey 
door, that I had deserted Joe. 

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would 
not have gone back to Biddy now, for any considera- 
tion: simply, I suppose, because my sense of my own 
worthless conduct to them was greater than every 
consideration. No wisdom on earth could have given 
me the comfort that I should have derived from their 
simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, never, 
undo what I had done. 

In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pur- 
suers. Twice, I could have sworn there was a knock- 
ing and whispering at the outer door. With these fears 
upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I had 
had mysterious warnings of this man's approach. 
That, for weeks gone by, I had passed faces in the 
streets which I had thought like hfs. That, these like- 
nesses had grown more numerous, as he coming over the 
sea, had drawn nearer. That, his wicked spirit had some- 
how sent these messengers to mine, and that now on 
this stormy night he was as good as his word, and 
with me. 

Crowding up with these reflections came the reflec- 
tion that I had seen him with my childish eyes to be a 
desperately violent man; that I had heard that other con- 
vict reiterate that he had tried to murder him; that I 
had seen him down in the ditch, tearing and fighting 
like a wild beast. Out of such remembrances I brought 
into the light of the fire, a half -formed terror that it 
might not be safe to be shut up there with him in the 
dead of the wild solitary night. This dilated until it 
filled the room, and impelled me to take a candle and 
go in and look at my dreadful burden. 

He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his 
face was set and lowering in his sleep. But he was 
asleep, and quietly too, though he had a pistol lying on 
the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key 
to the outside of his door, and turned it on him before 
I again sat down by the fire. Gradually I slipped from 
the chair and lay on the floor. When I awoke without 
having parted in my Sleep with the perception of my 
wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 317 

were striking five, the candles were wasted out, the 
fire was dead, and the wind and rain intensified the 
thick black darkness. 



THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF 
PIP'S EXPECTATIONS. 






318 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER XL. 

IT was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions 
to insure (so far as I could) the safety of my dreaded 
visitor; for, this thought pressing on me when I awoke, 
held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a 
distance. 

The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the 
chambers was self-evident. It could not be done, and 
the attempt to do it would inevitably engender sus- 
picion. True, I had no Avenger in my service now, but 
I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, as- 
sisted by an animated rag-bag whom she called her 
niece; and to keep a room secret from them would be 
to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had 
weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chron- 
ically looking in at keyholes, and they were always at 
hand when not wanted; indeed that was their only 
reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get up a mys- 
tery with these people, I resolved to announce in the 
morning that my uncle had unexpectedly come from the 
country. 

This course I decided on while I was yet groping 
ab^ut in the darkness for the means of getting a light. 
Not stumbling on the means after all, I was fain to go 
to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there to 
come with his lantern. Now, in groping my way down 
the black staircase I fell over something, and that some- 
thing was a man crouching in a corner. 

As the man made no answer when I asked him what 
he did there, but eluded my touch in silence, I ran to 
the Lodge and urged the watchman to come quickly: 
telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind 
being as fierce as ever, we did not care to endanger the 
light in the lantern by rekindling the extinguished 
lamps on the staircase, but we examined the staircase 
from the bottom to the top and found no one there. It 
then occurred to me as possible that the man might have 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 319 

slipped into my rooms; so, lighting my candle at the 
watchman's, and leaving him standing at the door, I 
examined them carefully, including the room in which 
my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was quiet and 
assuredly no other man was in those chambers. 

It troubled me that there should have been a lurker 
on the stairs, on that night of all nights in the year, 
and I asked the watchman, on the chance of eliciting 
some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram 
at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any 
gentleman who had perceptibly been dining out? 
Yes, he said; at different times of the night, three. 
One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived 
in the Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, 
the only other man who dwelt in the house of which 
my chambers formed a part, had been in the country 
for some weeks; and he certainly had not returned in 
the night, because we had seen his door with his seal 
on it as we came up-stairs. 

" The night being so bad, sir/' said the watchman, as 
he gave me back my glass, "uncommon few have 
come in at my gate. Besides them three gentlemen 
that I have named, I don't call to mind another since 
about eleven o'clock, when a stranger asked for you." 

" My uncle," I muttered. " Yes." 

"You saw him, sir?" 

"Yes. Oh yes." 

" Likewise the person with him?" 

" Person with him !" I repeated. 

" I judged the person to be with him," returned the 
watchman. " The person stopped, when he stopped to 
make inquiry of me, and the person took this way 
when he took this way." 

" What sort of person? " 

The watchman had not particularly noticed; he 
should say a working person; to the best of his belief, 
he had a dust-coloured kind of clothes on, under a dark 
coat. The watchman made more light of the matter 
than I did, naturally; not having my reason for attach- 
ing weight to it. 

When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to 
do without prolonging explanations, my mind was much 
troubled by these two circumstances taken together. 
Whereas they were easy of innocent solution apart — 



320 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

as, for instance, some diner-out or diner-at-home, who 
had not gone near this watchman's gate, might have 
strayed to my staircase and dropped asleep there — and 
my nameless visitor might have brought some one 
with him to show him the way — still, joined, they had 
an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the 
changes of a few hours had made me. 

I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare 
at that time of the morning, and fell into a doze before 
it. I seemed to have been dozing a whole night when 
the clock struck six. As there was full an hour and a 
half between me and daylight, I dozed again; now, 
waking up uneasily, with prolix conversations about 
nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder of the 
wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into a 
profound sleep from which the daylight woke me 
with a start. 

All this time I had never been able to consider my 
own situation, nor could I do so yet. I had not the 
power to attend to it. I was greatly dejected and dis- 
tressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way. As 
to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have 
formed an elephant. When I opened the shutters and 
looked out at the wet wild morning, all of a leaden hue; 
when I walked from room to room; when I sat down 
again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my 
laundress to appear; I thought how miserable I was, 
but hardly knew why, or how long I had been so, 
or on what day of the week I made the reflection, 
or even who I was that made it. 

At last the old woman and the mece came in — the 
latter with a head not easily distinguished from her 
dusty broom — and testified surprise at sight of me and 
the fire. To whom I imparted how my uncle had come 
in the night and was then asleep, and how the break- 
fast preparations were to be modified accordingly. 
Then, I washed and dressed while they knocked the 
furniture about and made a dust; and so, in a sort of 
dream or sleep-waking, I found myself sitting by the 
fire again, waiting for — Him — to come to breakfast. 

By-and-by, his door opened and he came out. I 
could not bring myself to bear the sight of him, and I 
thought he had a worse look by daylight. 

"I do not even know," said I, speaking low as he 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 321 

took his seat at the table, "by what name to call you. 
I have given out that you are my uncle." 

"That's it, dear boy ! call me uncle." 

"You assumed some name, I suppose, onboard ship?" 

" Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis." 

" Do you mean to keep that name ? " 

" Why, yes, dear boy, it's as good as another — 
unless you'd like another." 

"What is your real name?" I asked him in a whisper. 

"Magwitch," he answered in the same tone; 
" chrisen'd Abel. " 

" What were you brought up to be? " 

" A warmint, dear boy." 

He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if 
it denoted some profession. 

"When you came into the Temple last night " 

said I, pausing to wonder whether that could really 
have been last night, which seemed so long ago. 

"Yes, dear boy." 

" When you came in at the gate and asked the watch- 
man the way here, had you any one with you?" 

" With me? No, dear boy." 

" But there was some one there." 

"I didn't take particular notice," he said, dubiously, 
"not knowing the ways of the place. But I think 
there was a person, too, come in alonger me." 

" Are you known in London? " 

" I hope not," said he, giving his neck a jerk with 
his forefinger that made me turn hot and sick. 

"Were you known in London once?" 

" Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the prov- 
inces mostly." 

"Were you — tried — in London?" 

"Which time?" said he, with a sharp look. 

"The last time." 

He nodded. " First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. 
Jaggers was for me." 

It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, 
but he took up a knife, gave it a flourish, and with the 
words, " And what I done is worked out and paid for!" 
fell to at his breakfast. 

He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, 
and all his actions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. 
Some of his teeth had failed him since I saw him eat on 
vol. i. 21 






322 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth, 
and turned his head sideways to bring his strongest 
fangs to bear upon it, he looked terribly like a hungry 
old dog. If I had begun with any appetite, he would 
have taken it away, and I should have sat much as I 
did — repelled from him by an insurmountable aversion, 
and gloomily looking at the cloth. 

" I'm a heavy grubber, dear boy," he said, as a polite 
kind of apology when he had made an end of his meal, 
"but I always was. If it had been in my constitution 
to be a lighter grubber, I might ha' got into lighter 
trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I 
was first hired out as shepherd t'other side the world, 
it's my belief I should ha' turned into a molloncolly- 
mad sheep myself, if I hadn't a had my smoke." 

As he said so, he got up from table, and putting his 
hand into the breast of the pea-coat he wore, brought 
out a short black pipe, and a handful of loose tobacco 
of the kind that is called Negro-head. Having filled 
his pipe, he put the surplus tobacco back again, as if 
his pocket were a drawer. Then he took a live coal 
from the fire with the tongs, and lighted his pipe at it, 
and then turned round on the hearth-rug with his back 
to the fire, and went through his favourite action of 
holding out both his hands for mine. 

" And this," said he, dandling my hands up and down 
in his, as he puffed at his pipe; " and this is the gentle- 
man what I made! The real genuine One! It does me 
good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip'late, is to stand 
by and look at you, dear boy! " 

I released my hands as soon as I could, and found 
that I was beginning slowly to settle down to the con- 
templation of my condition. What I was chained to, 
and how heavily, became intelligible to me, as I heard 
his hoarse voice, and sat looking up at his furrowed 
bald head with its iron-grey hair at the sides. 

" I mustn't see my gentleman a footing it in the mire 
of the streets; there mustn't be no mud on his boots. 
My gentleman must have horses, Pip. Horses to ride, 
and horses to drive, and horses for his servant to ride 
and drive c^s well. Shall colonists have their horses 
(and blood 'uns, if you please, good Lord !) and not my 
London gentleman? No, no. We'll show 'em another 
pair of shoes than that, Pip; won't us?" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 323 

He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, 
bursting with papers, and tossed it on the table. 

"There's something worth spending in that there 
book, dear boy. It's yourn. All I've got ain't mine; 
it's yourn. Don't you be afeered on it. There's more 
where that come from. I've come to the old country 
fur to see my gentleman spend his money like a gentle- 
man. That'll be my pleasure. My pleasure 'ull be fur 
to see him do it. And blast you all," he wound up, 
looking round the room and snapping his fingers once 
with a loud snap, "blast you every one, from the judge 
in his wig, to the colonists a stirring up the dust, I'll 
show a better gentleman than the whole kit on you put 
together." 

"Stop!" said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dis- 
like, "I want to speak to you. I want to know what 
is to be done. I want to know how you are to be kept 
out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what 
projects you have." 

" Look'ee here, Pip," said he, laying his hand on my 
arm in a suddenly altered and subdued manner; "first 
of all, look'ee here. I forgot myself half a minute 
ago. What I said was low; that's what it was; low. 
Look'ee here, Pip. Look over it. I ain't a going to 
be low." 

" First," I resumed, half groaning, " what precautions 
can be taken against your being recognised and seized ? " 

" No, dear boy," he said, in the same tone as before, 
" that don't go first. Lowness goes first. I ain't took 
so many year to make a gentleman, not without know- 
ing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I was low ; 
that's what I was; low. /Look over it, dear boy." 

Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a 
fretful laugh, as I replied, "I have looked over it. In 
Heaven's name, don't harp upon it!" 

"Yes, but look'ee here," he persisted. " Dear boy, I 
ain't come so fur, not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear 
boy. You was a saying " 

" How are you to be guarded from the danger you 
have incurred?" 

"Well, dear boy, the danger ain't so great. With- 
out I was informed agen, the danger ain't so much to 
signify. There's Jaggers, and there's Wemmick, and 
there's you. Who else is there to inform?" 



324 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" There is no chance person who might identify you 
in the street?" said I. 

" Well/' he returned, " there ain't many. Nor yet I 
don't intend to advertise myself in the newspapers by 
the name of A. M. come back from Botany Bay; and 
years have rolled away, and who's to gain by it? Still, 
look'ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times 
as great, I should ha' come to see you, mind you, 
just the same." 

" And how long do you remain?" 

" How long? " said he, taking his black pipe from his 
mouth, and dropping his jaw as he stared at me. " I'm 
not a going back. I've come for good." 

" Where are you to live?" said I. " What is to be 
done with you? Where will you be safe?" 

" Dear boy, he returned, " there's disguising wigs can 
be bought for money, and there's hair powder, and 
spectacles, and black clothes — shorts and what not. 
Others has done it safe afore, and what others has done 
afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of 
living, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it." 

" You take it smoothly now," said I, " but you were 
very serious last night, when you swore it was Death." 

" And so I swear it is Dee L h," said he, putting his 
pipe back in his mouth, "and Death by the rope, in the 
open street not fur from this, and it's serious that you 
should fully understand it to be so. What then, when 
that's once done? Here I am. To go back now, 'ud be 
as bad as to stand ground — worse. Besides, Pip, I'm 
here, because I've meant it by you, years and years. 
As to what I dare, I'm a old bird now, as has dared 
all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I'm 
not af eerd to perch upon a scarecrow. If there's Death 
hid inside of it, there is, and let him come out, and I'll 
face him, and then I'll believe in him and not afore. 
And now let me have a look at my gentleman agen." 

Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed 
me with an air of admiring proprietorship: smoking 
with great complacency all the while. 

It appeared to me that I could do no better than se- 
cure him some quiet lodging hard by, of which he might 
take possession when Herbert returned: whom I ex- 
pected in two or three days. That the secret must be 
confided to Herbert as a matter of unavoidable neces- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 225 

sity, even if I could have {Hit the immense relief I should 
derive from sharing it with him out of the question, 
was plain to me. But it was by no means so plain to 
Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that name), who 
reserved his consent to Herbert's participation until he 
should have seen him and formed a favourable judg- 
ment of his physiognomy. "And even then, dear boy," 
said he, pulling a greasy little clasped black Testament 
out of his pocket " We'll have him on his oath." 

To state that my terrible patron carried this little 
black book about the world solely to swear people on 
in cases of emergency, would be to state what I never 
quite established — but this I can say, that I never 
knew him put it to any other use. The book itself 
had the appearance of having been stolen from some 
court of justice, and perhaps his knowledge of its ante- 
cedents, combined with his own experience in that 
wise, gave him a reliance on its powers as a sort of 
legal spell or charm. On this first occasion of his pro- 
ducing it, I recalled how he had made me swear fidelity 
in the churchyard long ago, and how he had described 
himself last night as always swearing to his resolutions 
in his solitude. 

As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, 
in which he looked as if he had some parrots and 
cigars to dispose of, I next discussed with him what 
dress he should wear. He cherished an extraordinary 
belief in the virtues of "shorts" as a disguise, and 
had in his own mind sketched a dress for himself 
that would have made him something between a dean 
and a dentist. It was with considerable difficulty 
that I won him over to the assumption of a dress more 
like a prosperous farmer's; and we arranged that he 
should cut his hair close, and wear a little powder. 
Lastly, as he had not yet been seen by the laundress or 
her niece, he was to keep himself out of their view 
until his change of dress was made. 

It would seem a simple matter to decide on these pre- 
cautions ; but in my dazed, not to say distracted, state, 
it took so long, that I did not get out to further them, 
until two or three in the afternoon. He was to remain 
shut up in the chambers while I was gone, and was on 
no account to open the door. 

There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging- 



326 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

house in Essex-street, the back of which looked into 
the Temple, and was almost within hail of my windows, 
I first of all repaired to that house, and was so fort- 
unate as to secure the second floor for my uncle, Mr. 
Provis. I then went from shop to shop, making such 
purchases as were necessary to the change in his ap- 
pearance. This business transacted, I turned my face, 
on my own account, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers was 
at his desk, but, seeing me enter, got up immediately 
and stood before his fire. 

" Now, Pip," said he, "be careful." 

" I will, sir," I returned. For, coming along, I had 
thought well of what I was going to say. 

"Don't commit yourself," said Mr. Jaggers, "and 
don't commit any one. You understand — any one. 
Don't tell me anything; I don't want to know anything; 
I am not curious." 

Of course I saw that he knew the man was come. 

" I merely want, Mr. Jaggers," said I " to assure my- 
self what I have been told, is true. I have no hope of 
its being untrue, but at least I may verify it." 

Mr. Jaggers nodded. "But did you say 'told' or 'in- 
formed'?" he asked me, with his head on one side, and 
not looking at me, but looking in a listening way at the 
floor. " Told would seem to apply verbal communica- 
tion. You can't have verbal communication with a man 
in New South Wales, you know." 

"I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers." 

"Good." 

"I have been informed by a person named Abel 
Magwitch, that he is the benefactor so long unknown 
to me." 

"That is the man," said Mr. Jaggers, " — in New* 
South Wales." 

" And only he," said I. 

"And only he," said Mr. Jaggers. 

" I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all 
responsible for my mistakes and wrong conclusions ; 
but I always supposed it was Miss Havisham." 

"As you say, Pip," returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his 
eyes upon me coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, 
"I am not at all responsible for that." 

"And yet it looked so like it, sir," I pleaded with a 
downcast heart. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 327 

" Not a particle of evidence, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, 
shaking his head and gathering up his skirts. " Take 
nothing on its looks ; take everything on evidence. 
There's no better rule." 

" I have no more to say, "said I, with a sigh, after stand- 
ing silent for a little while. " I have verified my infor- 
mation, and there's an end." 

" And Mag witch — in New South Wales — having at 
last disclosed himself," said Mr. Jaggers, "you will 
comprehend, Pip, how rigidly throughout my commu- 
nication with you, I have always adhered to the strict 
line of fact. There has never been the least departure 
from the strict line of fact. You are quite aware of 
that?" 

"Quite, sir." 

" I communicated to Mag witch — in New South Wales 
— when he first wrote to me — from New South Wales — 
the caution that he must not expect me ever to deviate 
from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to 
him another caution. He appeared to me to have ob- 
scurely hinted in his letter at some distant idea of see- 
ing you in England here. I cautioned him that I must 
hear no more of that; that he was not at all likely to 
obtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for the term 
of his natural life; and that his presenting himself in 
this country would be an act of felony, rendering him 
liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave Mag- 
witch that caution," said Mr. Jaggers looking hard at 
me ; "I wrote it to New South Wales. He guided him- 
self by it, no doubt." 

"No doubt," saidl. 

" I have been informed by Wemmick," pursued Mr. 
Jaggers, still looking hard at me, "that he has received 
a letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist of the 
name of Purvis, or " 

" Or Pro vis," I suggested. 

"Or Pro vis — thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Pro vis? 
Perhaps you know it's Provis ? " 

"Yes," saidl. 

" You know it's Provis. A letter, under date Ports- 
mouth, from a colonist of the name of Provis, asking 
for the particulars of your address, on behalf of Mag- 
witch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I under- 
stand, by return of post. Probably it is through Provis 



328 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

that you have received the explanation of Magwitch — 
in New South Wales ? " 

"It came through Pro vis/' I replied. 

" Good day, Pip," said Mr. J aggers, offering his hand; 
* ' glad to have seen you. In writing by post to Mag- 
witch — in New South "Wales — or in communicating 
with him through Provis, have the goodness to mention 
that the particulars and vouchers of our long account 
shall be sent to you, together with the balance; for 
there is still a balance remaining. Good day, Pip!" 

We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as 
he could see me. I turned at the door, and he was still 
looking hard at me, while the two vile casts on the 
shelf seemed to be trying to get their eyelids open, and 
to force out of their swollen throats, " Oh, what a man 
he is ! " 

Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his 
desk he could have done nothing for me. I went straight 
back to the Temple, where I found the terrible Provis 
drinking rum-and- water, and smoking negro-head, in 
safety. 

Next day the clothes I had ordered, all came home, 
and he put them on. Whatever he put on, became him 
less (it dismally seemed to me) than what he had worn 
before. To my thinking there was something in him 
that made it hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The 
more I dressed him and the better I dressed him, the more 
he looked like the slouching fugitive on the marshes. 
This effect on my anxious fancy was partly referable, 
no doubt, to his old face and manner growing more 
familiar to me: but I believe too that he dragged one of 
his legs as if there were still a weight of iron on it, and 
that from head to foot there was Convict in the very 
grain of the man. 

The influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him 
besides, and gave him a savage air that no dress could 
tame; added to these were the influences of his sub- 
sequent branded life among men, and, crowning all, his 
consciousness that he was dodging and hiding now. In 
all his ways of sitting and standing, and eating and 
drinking — of brooding about, in a high-shouldered re- 
luctant style — of taking out his great horn-handled 
jack-knife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his 
food — of lifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 329 

they were clumsy pannikins — of chopping a wedge off 
his bread, and soaking up with it the last fragments of 
gravy round and round his plate, as if to make the 
most of an allowance, and then drying his finger-ends 
on it, and then swallowing it — in these ways and a 
thousand other small nameless instances arising every 
minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon, Bonds- 
man, plain as plain could be. 

It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, 
and I conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. 
But I can compare the effect of it, when on, to nothing 
but the probable effect of rouge upon the dead ; so 
awful was the manner in which everything in him that 
it was most desirable to repress, started through that thin 
layer of pretence, and seemed to cpme blazing out at the 
crown of his head. It was abandoned as soon as tried, 
and he wore his grizzled hair cut short. 

Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same 
time, of the dreadful mystery that he was to me. When 
he fell asleep of an evening, with his knotted hands 
clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head 
tattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his 
breast, I would sit and look at him, wondering what he 
had done, and loading him with all the crimes in the 
Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to start 
up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my ab- 
horrence of him, that I even think I might have yielded 
to this impulse in the first agonies of being so haunted, 
notwithstanding all he had done for me and the risk he 
ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon come 
back. Once, I actually did start out of bed in the night, 
and begin to dress myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly 
intending to leave him there with everything else I pos- 
sessed, and enlist for India, as a private soldier. 

I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, 
up in those lonely rooms in the long evenings and long 
nights, with the wind and the rain always rushing by. 
A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on my 
account, and the consideration that he could be, and the 
dread that he would be, were no small addition to my 
horrors. When he was not asleep, or playing a com- 
plicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of cards 
of his own — a game that I never saw before or since, 
and in which he recorded his winnings by sticking his 



330 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

jack-knife into the table — when he was not engaged in 
either of these pursuits, he would ask me to read to 
him — " Foreign language, dear boy! " While I complied, 
he, not comprehending a single word, would stand be- 
fore the fire surveying me with the air of an Exhibitor, 
and I would see him, between the fingers of the hand 
with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb show 
to the furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The 
imaginary student pursued by the misshapen creature 
he had impiously made, was not more wretched than I, 
pursued by the creature who had made me, and yecoil- 
ing from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he 
admired me and the fonder he was of me. 

This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a 
year. It lasted about five days. Expecting Herbert all 
the time, I dared not go out, except when I took Provis 
for an airing after dark. At length, one evening when 
dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite 
worn out — for my nights had been agitated and my rest 
broken by fearful dreams — I was roused by the wel- 
come footstep on the staircase. Provis, who had been 
asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made, and in an 
instant I saw his jack-knife shining in his hand. 

"Quiet! It's Herbert/' I said; and Herbert came 
bursting in, with the airy freshness of six hundred 
miles of France upon him. 

" Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again 
how are you, and again how are you? I seem to have 
been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have been, 
for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my 
Halloa! I beg your pardon." 

He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking 
hands with me, by seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him 
with a fixed attention, was slowly putting up his jack- 
knife, and groping in another pocket for something else. 

" Herbert, my dear friend," said I, shutting the double 
doors, while Herbert stood , staring and wondering, 
" something very strange has happened. This is— a 
visitor of mine." 

" It's all right, dear boy ! " said Provis coming forward, 
with his little clasped black book, and then addressing 
himself to Herbert. " Take it in your right hand. Lord 
strike you dead on the spot, if you split in any way 
sumever. Kiss it!" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 331 

" Do so, as he wishes it," I said to Herbert. So, Her- 
bert, looking at me with a friendly uneasiness and 
amazement, complied, and Provis immediately shaking 
hands with him, said, u Now you're on your oath, you 
know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't 
make a gentleman on you!" 



CHAPTER XLI. 



IN vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment 
and disquiet of Herbert, when he and I and Provis 
sat down before the fire, and I recounted the whole of 
the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings re- 
flected in Herbert's face, and, not least among them, 
my repugnance towards the man who had done so 
much for me. 

What would alone have set a division between that 
man and us, if there had been no other dividing circum- 
stance, was his triumph in my story. Saving his trouble- 
some sense of having been "low" on one occasion since 
his return — on which point he began to hold forth to 
Herbert, the moment my revelation was finished — he 
had no perception of the possibility of my finding any 
fault with my good fortune. His boast that he had 
made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me 
support the character on his ample resources, was made 
for me quite as much as for himself. And that it was 
a highly agreeble boast to both of us, and that we must 
both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite estab- 
lished in his own mind. 

"Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade," he said to 
Herbert, after having discoursed for some time, " I know 
very well that once since I come back — for half a min- 
ute — I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had 
been low. But don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't 
made Pip a gentleman, and Pip ain't a going to make 
you a gentleman, not fur me not to know what's due to 
ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may 
count upon me always having a gen-teel muzzle on. 
Muzzled I have been since that half a minute when I 
was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am at the present 
time, muzzled I ever will be." 



332 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Herbert said, " Certainly/' but looked as if there were 
no specific consolation in this, and remained perplexed 
and dismayed. We were anxious for the time when 
he would go to his lodging, and* leave us together, but 
he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat 
late. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex 
Street, and saw him safely in at his own dark door. 
When it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment 
of relief I had known since the night of his arrival. 

Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the 
man on the stairs, I had always looked about me in taking 
my guest out after dark, and in bringing him back; and 
I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a large city 
to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind 
is conscious of danger in that regard, I could not 
persuade myself that any of the people within sight 
cared about my movements. The few who were pass- 
ing, passed on their several ways, and the street was 
empty when I turned back into the Temple. Nobody 
had come out at the gate with us, nobody went in at 
the gate with me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw 
his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, 
when I stood for a few moments in the doorway of the 
building where I lived, before going up the stairs, 
Garden-court was as still and lifeless as the staircase 
was when I ascended it. 

" Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never 
felt before so blessedly, what it is to have a friend. 
When he had spoken some sound words of sympathy 
and encouragement, we sat down to consider the ques- 
tion, What was to be done? 

The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining 
where it had stood — for he had a barrack way with him 
of hanging about one spot, in one unsettled manner, 
and going through one round of observances with his 
pipe and his negro-head and his jack-knife and his pack 
of cards, and what not, as if it were all put down for 
him on a slate — I say, his chair remaining where it had 
stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but next moment 
started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. 
He had no occasion to say, after that, that he had con- 
ceived an aversion for my patron, neither had I occa- 
sion to confess my own. We interchanged that con- 
fidence without shaping a syllable. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 333 

"What," said I to Herbert, when he was safe in 
another chair, " what is to be done?" 

" My poor dear Handel/' he replied, holding his head, 
" I am too stunned to think." 

" So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, 
something must be done. He is intent upon various 
new expenses — horses, and carriages, and lavish ap- 
pearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow." 

" You mean that you can't accept— — " 

" How can I?" I interposed, as Herbert paused. 
" Think of him ! Look at him! " 

An involuntary shudder passed over both of us. 

" Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that 
he is attached to me, strongly attached to me. Was 
there ever such a fate!" 

"My poor dear Handel," Herbert repeated. 

" Then," said I, "after all, stopping short here, never 
taking another penny from him, think what I owe him 
already! Then again: I am heavily in debt — very 
heavily for me, who have now no expectations — and I 
have been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing." 

"Well, well, well!" Herbert remonstrated. "Don't 
say fit for nothing." 

" What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I 
am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might 
have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the prospect of 
taking counsel with your friendship and affection." 

Of course, I broke down there : and of course Herbert, 
beyond seizing a warm grip of my hand, pretended not 
to know it. 

" Anyhow, my dear Handel," said he presently, "sol- 
diering won't do. If you were to renounce this patron- 
age and these favours, I suppose you would do so with 
some faint hope of one day repaying what you have 
already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went 
soldiering! Besides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely 
better in Clarriker's house, small as it is. I am working 
up towards a partnership, you know," 

Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money. 

" But there is another question," said Herbert. "This 
is an ignorant determined man, who has long had one 
fixed idea. More than that, he seems to me (I may 
misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce 
character." 



334 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" I know he is," I returned. " Let me tell you what 
evidence I have seen of it." And I told him what I had 
not mentioned in my narrative; of that encounter with 
the other convict. 

" See, then/' said Herbert; " think of this! He comes 
here at the peril of his life, for the realisation of his 
fixed idea. In the moment of realisation, after all his 
toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his 
feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to 
him. Do you see nothing that he might do, under the 
disappointment? " 

" I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever 
since the fatal night of his arrival. Nothing has been 
in my thoughts so distinctly as his putting himself in 
the way of being taken." 

"Then you may rely upon it," said Herbert, "that 
there would be great danger of his doing it. That 
is his power over you as long as he remains in England, 
and that would be his reckless course if you forsook 
him." 

I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had 
weighed upon me from the first, and the working otit 
of which would make me regard myself, in some sort, 
as his murderer, that I could not rest in my chair but 
began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, 
that even if Provis were recognised and taken, in spite 
of himself, I should be wretched as the cause, however 
innocently. Yes; even though I was so wretched in 
having him at large and near me, and even though I 
would far rather have worked at the forge all the days 
of my life than I would ever have come to this! 

But there was no staving off the question, What was 
to be done? 

" The first and the main thing to be done," said Her- 
bert, " is to get him out of England. You will have to 
go with him, and then he may be induced to go." 

" But get him where I will/ could I prevent his com- 
ing back?" 

"My good Handel, is it not obvious that with New- 
gate in the next street, there must be far greater 
hazard in your breaking your mind to him and making 
him reckless, here, than elsewhere. If a pretext to get 
him away could be made out of that other convict, or 
out of anything else in his life, now," 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 335 



iC 



There again! " said I, stopping before Herbert, with 
my open hands held out, as if they contained the des- 
peration of the case. " I know nothing of his life. It 
has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see 
him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and mis- 
fortunes, and yet so unknown to me, except as the 
miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my 
childhood!" 

Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we 
slowly walked to and fro together, studying the carpet. 

"Handel," said Herbert, stopping, "you feel con- 
vinced that you can take no further benefits from him; 
do you?" 

"Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my 
place?" 

"And you feel convinced that you must break with 
him?" 

" Herbert, can you ask me? " 

"And you have, and are bound to have, that tender- 
ness for the life he has risked on your account, that you 
must save him, if possible, from throwing it away. 
Then you must get him out of England before you stir 
a finger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate 
yourself, in Heaven's name, and we'll see it out together, 
dear old boy." 

It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk 
up and down again, with only that done. 

" Now, Herbert," said I, "with reference to gaining 
some knowledge of his history. There is but one way 
that I know of. I must ask him point-blank." 

"Yes. Ask him," said Herbert, "when we sit at 
breakfast in the morning." For, he had said, on taking 
leave of Herbert, that he would come to breakfast with 
us. 

With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the 
wildest dreams concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; 
I woke, too, to recover the fear which I had lost in the 
night, of his being found out as a returned transport. 
Waking, I never lost that fear. 

He can.e round at the appointed time, took out his 
jack-knife, and sat down to his meal. He was full of 
plans " for his gentleman's coming out strong, and like 
a gentleman," and urged me to begin speedily upon the 
pocket-book, which he had left in my possession. He 



336 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

considered the chambers and his own lodging as tem- 
porary residences, and advised me to look out at once 
for a " fashionable crib " near Hyde Park, in which he 
could have " a shake-down." When he had made an 
end of his breakfast, and was wiping his knife on his 
leg, I said to him, without a word of preface: 

" Afte~ you were gone last night, I told my friend of 
the struggle that the soldiers found you engaged in on 
the marshes, when we came up. You remember?" 

" Remember! " said he. " I think so! " 

" We want to know something about that man — and 
about you. It is stramge to know no more about either, 
and particularly you, than I was able to tell last night. 
Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing 
more?" 

" Well! "he said, after consideration. "You're on 
your oath, you know, Pip's comrade?" 

" Assuredly," replied Herbert. 

" As to anything I say, you know," he insisted. "The 
oath applies to all." 

" I understand it to do so." 

"And look'ee here! Wotever I done, is worked out 
and paid for," he insisted again. 

"So be it." 

He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with 
negro-head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in 
his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread 
of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe 
in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each 
knee, and, after turning an angry eye on the fire for a 
few silent moments, looked around at us and said what 
follows. 



CHAPTER XLII 



"T^vEAR boy and Pip's comrade. I am not a going fur 
jLJ to tell you my life, like a song or a story-book. 
But to give it you short and handy, I'll put it at once 
into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in 
jail and out of jail,in jail and out of jail. There, you've 
got it. That's my life pretty much, down to such times 
as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 33? 

" I've b^en done everything to, pretty well — except 
hanged. Fve been locked up, as much as a silver tea- 
kittle. IVe been carted here and carted there, and put 
out of this town and put out of that town, and stuck in 
the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. Fve 
no more notion where I was born, than you have — if so 
much. I first become aware of myself, down in Essex, 
a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run 
away from me — a man — a tinker — and he'd took the 
fire with him, and left me wery cold. 

" I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd 
Abel. How did I know it? Much as I know'd the birds' 
names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I 
might have thought it was all lies together, only as the 
birds' names come out true, I supposed mine did. 

"So fur as I could find, there warn't a soul that see 
young Abel Magwitch, with as little on him as in him, 
but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off, 
or took him up. I was took up, took up, took up, to 
that extent that I reg'larly grow'd up took up. 

"This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged 
little creetur as much to be pitied as ever I see (not that 
I looked in the glass, for there warn't many insides of 
furnished houses known to me), I got the name of being 
hardened. 'This is a terrible hardened one,' they says 
to prison wisitors, picking out me. ' May be said to 
live in jails, this boy.' Then they looked at me, and I 
looked at them, and they measured my head, some 
on 'em — they had better a measured my stomach — and 
others on 'em giv rue tracts what I couldn't read, and 
made me speeches what I couldn't understand. They 
always went on agen me about the Devil. But what 
the devil was I to do? — I must put something into my 
stomach, mustn't I? Howsomever, I'm a getting low, 
and I know what's due. Dear boy and Pip's comrade, 
don't you be af eerd of me being low. 

"Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes 
when I could — though that warn't as often as you may 
think, till you put the question whether you would ha' 
been over ready to give me work yourselves — a bit of a 
poacher, a bit of a labourer, a bit of a waggoner, a bit 
of a haymaker, a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things 
that don't pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man. 
A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest, what lay hid 
vol. i. 22 



338 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read; 
and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny 
a time learnt me to write. I warn't locked up as often 
now as formerly, but I wore out my good share of key- 
metal still. 

" At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty year ago, I 
got acquainted wi' a man whose skull Fd crack wi' this 
poker, like the claw of a lobster, if I'd got it on this 
hob. His right name was Compeyson; and that's the 
man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, 
according to what you truly told your comrade arter I 
was gone last night. 

"He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and 
he'd been to a public boarding-school and had learning. 
He was a smooth one to talk, and was a dab at the 
ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It 
was the night afore the great race, when I found him 
on the heath, in a booth that I know'd on. Him and 
some more was a sitting among the tables when I went 
in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, 
and was a sporting one) called him out, and said, ' I 
think this is a man that might suit you' — meaning I 
was. 

" Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I 
look at him. He has a watch and a chain and a ring 
and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of clothes. 

"'To judge from appearances, you're out of luck,' 
says Compeyson to me. 

" 'Yes, master, and I've never been in it much.' (I 
had come out of Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy com- 
mittal. None but what it might Have been for some- 
thing else; but it warn't.). 

"'Luck changes,' says Compeyson; 'perhaps yours 
is going to change.' 

" I says, ' I hope it may be so. There's room.' 

" ' What can you do?' says Compeyson. 

" ' Eat and drink,' I says; ' if you'll find the ma- 
terials.' 

"Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very no- 
ticing, giv me five shilling, and appointed me for next 
night. Same place. 

" I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and 
Compeyson took me on to be his man and pardner. 
And what was Compeyson's business in which we was 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 339 

to go pardners? Compey son's business was the swind- 
ling, handwriting forging, stolen bank-note passing, 
and such-like. All sorts of traps as Compeyson could 
set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get 
the profits from and let another man in for, was Com- 
peyson's business. He'd no more heart than a iron file, 
he was as cold as death, and he had the head of the 
Devil afore mentioned. 

" There was another in with Compeyson, as was called 
Arthur — not as being so chrisen'd, but as a surname. 
He was in a Decline, and was a shadow to look at. Him 
and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a rich 
lady some years afore, and they'd made a pot of money 
by it; but Compeyson betted and gamed, and he'd have 
run through the king's taxes. So, Arthur was a dying 
and a dying poor and with the horrors on him, and 
Compeyson's wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) 
was a having pity on him when she could, and 
Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and no- 
body. 

"I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn't and 
I won't pretend I was partick'ler — for where 'ud be the 
good on it, dear boy and comrade? So I begun wi' 
Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur 
lived at the top of Compeyson's house (over nigh Brent- 
ford it was), and Compeyson kept a careful account 
agen him for board and lodging, in case he should ever 
get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled the 
account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he 
come a tearing down into Compeyson's parlour late at 
night, in only a flannel gown, with his hair all in a 
sweat, and he says to Compeyson's wife, ' Sally, she 
really is up stairs alonger me, now, and I can't get rid 
of her. She's all in white,' he says, ' wi' white flowers 
in her hair, and she's awful mad, and she's got a shroud 
hanging over her arm, and she says she'll put it on me 
at five in the morning.' 

"Says Compeyson: 'Why, you fool, don't you know 
she's got a living body? And how should she be up 
there, without coming through the door, or in at the 
window, and up the stairs?' 

" c I don't know how she's there,' says Arthur, shivering 
dreadful with the horrors, ' but she's standing in the cor- 
ner at the foot of the bed, awful mad. And over where 



340 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

her heart's broke — you broke it! — there's drops of blood.' 

" Compeyson spoke hardly, but he was always a 
coward. ' Go up alonger this drivelling sick man/ he 
says to his wife, ' and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will 
you?' But he never come nigh himself. 

" Comp yson's wife and me took him up to bed agen, 
and he raved most dreadful. ' Why look at her!' he 
cries out. 'She's a shaking the shroud at me! Don't 
you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain't it awful to see 
her so mad?' Next, he cries, 'She'll put it on me, and 
then I'm done for! Take it away from her, take it 
away ! ' And then he catched hold of us, and kep on a 
talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed 
I see her myself. 

" Compey son's wife, being used to him, give him some 
liquor to get the horrors off, and by-and-by he quieted. 
' Oh, she's gone! Has her keeper been for her?' he says. 
' Yes,' says Compeyson's wife. ' Did you tell him to 
lock and bar her in?' 'Yes.' 'And to take that ugly 
thing away from her?' 'Yes, yes, all right.' 'You're 
a good creetur,' he says, ' don't leave me, whatever you 
do, and thank you! ' 

"He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few 
minutes of five, and then he starts up with a scream, 
and screams out 'Here she is! She's got the shroud 
again. She's unfolding it. She's coming out of the 
corner. She's coming to the bed.. Hold me, both on 
you — one of each side — don't let her touch me with it. 
Hah! She missed me that time. Don't let her throw 
it over my shoulders. Don't let her lift me up to get it 
round me. She's lifting me up. Keep me down! ' Then 
he lifted himself up hard, and was dead. 

" Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both 
sides. Him and me was soon busy, and first he swore 
me (being ever artful) on my own book — this here little 
black book, dear boy; what I swore your comrade on. 

"Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, 
and I done — which 'ud take a week — I'll simply say to 
you, dear boy, and Pip's comrade, that that man got me 
into such nets as made me his black slave. I was 
always in debt to him, always under his thumb, always 
a working, always a getting into danger. He was 
younger than me, but he'd got craft, and he'd got learn- 
ing, and he overmatched me five hundred times told 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 341 

and no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard times wi' 
Stop though! I ain't brought her in " 

He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had 
iost his place in the book of his remembrance; and he 
turned his face to the fire, and spread his hands broader 
on his knees, and lifted them off and put them on 
again. 

" There ain't no need to go into it," he said, looking 
round once more. "The time'wi' Compeyson was 
a'most as hard a time as ever I had; that said, all's 
said. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for misde- 
meanour, while with Compeyson?" 

I answered, No. 

"Well!" he said, "I was, and got convicted. As to 
took up on suspicion, that was twice or three times in 
the four or five year that it lasted; but evidence was 
wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both com- 
mitted for felony — on a charge of putting stolen notes 
in circulation — and there was other charges behind. 
Compeyson says to me, ' Separate defences, no commu- 
nication,' and that was all. And I was so miserably 
poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what 
hung on my back, afore I could get Jaggers. 

"When we were put into the dock, I noticed first 
of all what a gentleman Compeyson looked, wi' his 
curly hair and his black clothes and his white pocket- 
handhercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I 
looked. When the prosecution opened and the evidence 
was put short, aforehand, I noticed how heavy it all 
bore on me, and how light on him. When the evidence 
was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me 
that had come for'ard, and could be swore to, how it 
was always me that the money had been paid to, how 
it was always me that had seemed to work the thing and 
get the profit. But, when the defence came on, then I 
see the plan plainer; for, says the counsellor for Com- 
peyson, ' My lord and gentlemen, here you has afore 
you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can separate 
wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be 
spoke to as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who 
will be spoke to as such; one, the younger, seldom if 
ever seen in these here transactions, and only suspected; 
t'other, the elder, always seen in 'em and always wi' 
his guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but 



342 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

one in it, which is the one, and if there is two in it, 
which is much the worst one ? ' And such-like. And 
when it come to character, warn't it Compeyson as had 
been to school, and warn't it his schoolfellows as war, 
in this position and in that, and warn't it him as had 
been know'd by witnesses in such clubs and societies, 
and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn't it me as 
had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill 
and down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups? And 
when it comes to speech-making, warn't it Compeyson 
as could speak to 'em wi' his face dropping every now 
and then into his white pocket-handkercher — ah! and 
wi' verses in his speech too — and warn't it me as could 
only say, ' Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most 
precious rascal'? And when the verdict come, warn't 
it Compeyson as was recommended to mercy on ac- 
count of good character and bad company, and giving 
up all the information he could agen me, and warn't it 
me as got never a word but Guilty? And when I says 
to Compeyson, ' Once out of this court, I'll smash that 
face o' yourn?' ain't it Compeyson as prays the Judge 
to be protected, and gets two turnkeys stood betwixt 
us? And when we're sentenced, ain't it him as gets 
seven year, and me fourteen, and ain't it him as the 
Judge is sorry for, because he might a done go well, 
and ain't it me as the Judge perceives to be a old 
offender of wiolent passion, likely to come to worse ? " 

He had worked himself into a state of great excite- 
ment, but he checked it, took two or three short breaths 
swallowed as often, and stretching out his hand towards 
me said, in a reassuring manner, " I ain't a going to be 
low, dear boy!" 

He had so heated himself that he took out his hand- 
kerchief and wiped his face and head and neck and 
hands, before he could go on. 

" I had said to Compeyson that I'd smash that face of 
his, and I swore Lord smash mine! to do it. We was 
in the same prison-ship, but I couldn't get at him for 
long, though I tr'ed. At last I come behind him and hit 
him on the *heek to turn him round and get a smash- 
ing one at him, when I was seen and seized. The 
black-hole of that ship warn't a strong one, to a judge of 
black -holes that could swim and dive. I escaped to the 
shore, and I was a hiding among the graves there, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 343 

envying them as was in 'em and all over, when I first 
see my boy ! " 

He regarded me with a look of affection that made 
him almost abhorrent to me again, though I had felt 
great pity for him. 

"By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson 
was out on them marshes too. Upon my soul, I half 
believe he escaped in his terror, to get quit of me, not 
knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him 
down. I smashed his face. ' And now/ says I, ' as the 
worst thing I can do, caring nothing for myself, I'll 
drag you back.' And I'd have swum off, towing him 
by the hair, if it had come to that, and I'd a got him 
aboard without the soldiers. 

"Of course he'd much the best of it to the last — his 
character was so good. He had escaped when he was 
made half wild by me and my murderous intentions; 
and his punishment was light. I was put in irons, 
brought to trial again, and sent for life. I didn't stop 
for life, dear boy and Pip's comrade, being here." 

He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and 
then slowly took his tangle of tobacco from his pocket, 
and plucked his pipe from his button-hole, and slowly 
filled it, and began to smoke. 

" Is he dead?" I asked, after a silence. 

"Is who dead, dear boy?" 

"Compeyson." 

" He hopes I am, if he's alive, you may be sure," with 
a fierce look. " I never heerd no more of him." 

Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover 
of a book. He softly pushed the book over to me, as 
Provis stood smoking with his eyes on the fire, and 
I read in it: 

" Young Havisham's name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who 
professed to be Miss Havisham's lover." 

I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and 
put the book by; but we neither of us said anything, 
and both looked at Provis as he stood smoking by the 
fire. 



344 GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

W'HY should I pause to ask how much of my shrink- 
ing from Provis might be traced to Estella? Why 
should I loiter on my road, to compare the state of 
mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of 
the prison before meeting her at the coach-office, with 
the state of mind in which I now reflected on the abyss 
between Estella in her pride and beauty, and the re- 
turned transport whom I harboured? The road would 
be none the smoother for it, the end would be none 
the better for it, he would not be helped, nor I ex- 
tenuated. 

A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his 
narrative; or rather, his narrative had given form and 
purpose to the fear that was already there. If Com- 
peyson were alive and should discover his return, I 
could hardly doubt the consequence. That, Compey- 
son stood in mortal fear of him, neither of the two 
could know much better than I; and that, any such 
man as that man had been described to be, would hesi- 
tate to release himself for good from a dreaded enemy 
by the safe means of becoming an informer, was scarcely 
to be imagined. 

Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe — or 
so I resolved — a word of Estella to Provis. But, I said 
to Herbert that before I could go abroad, I must see 
both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we 
were left alone on the night of the day when Provis told 
us his story. I resolved to go out to Richmond next 
day, and I went. 

On my presenting myself at Mrs. Blandley's, Estella's 
maid was called to tell me that Estella had gone into the 
country. Where? To Satis House, as usual. Not as 
usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there without 
me; when was she coming back? There was an air of 
reservation in the answer which increased my perplex- 
ity, and the answer was, that her maid believed she 
was only coming back at all for a little while. I coulo] 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 345 

make nothing of this, except that it was meant that I 
should make nothing of it, and I went home again in 
complete discomfiture. 

Another night-consultation with Herbert after Provis 
was gone home (I always took him home, and always 
looked well about me), led us to the conclusion that 
nothing should be said about going abroad until I came 
back from Miss Havisham's. In the mean time, Herbert 
and I were to consider separately what it would be best 
to say; whether we should devise any pretence of being 
afraid that he was under suspicious observation; or 
whether I, who had never yet been abroad, should pro- 
pose an expedition. We both knew that I had but to pro- 
pose anything, and he would consent. We agreed that 
his remaining many days in his present hazard was not 
to be thought of. 

Next day, I had the meanness to feign that I was 
under a binding promise to go down to Joe; but I was 
capable of almost any meanness towards Joe or his 
name. Provis was to be strictly careful while I was 
gone, and Herbert was to take the charge of him that 
I had taken. I was to be absent only one night, and, 
on my return, the gratification of his impatience for my 
starting as a gentleman on a greater scale, was to be 
begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards 
found to Herbert also, that he might be best got away 
across the water, on that pretence — as, to make pur- 
chases, or the like. 

Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to 
Miss Havisham's, I set off by the early morning coach 
before it was yet light, and was out in the open country- 
road when the day came creeping on, halting and 
whimpering and shivering, and wrapped in patches of 
cloud and rags of mist like a beggar. When we drove 
up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly ride, whom should I 
see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand, to 
look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle! 

As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see 
him. It was a very lame pretence on both sides; the 
lamer, because we both went into the coffee-room, 
where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I 
had ordered mine. It was poisonous to me to see him in 
the town, for I very well knew why he had come 
there. 



346 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of 
date, which had nothing half so legible in its local 
news, as the foreign matter of coffee, pickles, fish 
sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine, with which it 
was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in 
a highly irregular form, I sat at my table while he stood 
before the fire. By degrees it became an enormous 
injury to me that he stood before the fire. And I got 
up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my 
hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to 
the fire-place to stir the fire, but still pretended not to 
know him. 

"Is this a cut?" said Mr. Drummle. 

"Oh?" said I, poker in hand; "it's you, is it? How do 
you do ? I was wondering who it was, who kept the 
fire off." 

With that I poked tremendously, and having done so, 
planted myself side by side with Mr. Drummle, my 
shoulders squared and my back to the fire. 

"You have just come down?" said Mr. Drummle, 
edging me a little away with his shoulder. 

" Yes," said I, edging him a little away with my 
shoulder. 

" Beastly place," said Drummle — "Your part of the 
country, I think?" 

"Yes," I assented. "I am told it's very like your 
Shropshire." 

" Not in the least like it," said Drummle. 

Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked 
at mine, and then Mr. Drummle looked at my boots, 
and I looked at his. 

" Have you been here long?" I asked, determined not 
to yield an inch of the fire. 

" Long enough to be tired of it," returned Drummle, 
pretending to yawn, but equally determined. 

" Do you stay here long? " 

"Can't say," answered Mr. Drummle. " Do you?" 

"Can't say," said I. 

I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if 
Mr. Drummle's shoulder had claimed another hair's 
breadth of room, I should have jerked him into the 
window; equally, that if my shoulder had urged a 
similar claim, Mr. Drummle would have jerked me into 
the nearest box. He whistled a little, So did I, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 347 

" Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?" said 
Drummle. 

" Yes. What of that? " said I. 

Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, 
and then said, "Oh! " and laughed. 

" Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?" 

" No," said he, " not particularly. I am going out for 
a ride in the saddle. I mean to explore those marshes 
for amusement. Out-of-the-way villages there, they tell 
me. Curious little public-houses — and smithies — and 
that. Waiter!" 

"Yes, sir." 

" Is that horse of mine ready?" 

"Brought round to the door, sir." 

"I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won't ride to- 
day; the weather won't do." 

" Very good, sir." 

"And I don't dine, because I am going to dine at the 
lady's." 

"Very good, sir." 

Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent 
triumph on his great- jowled face that cut me to the 
heart, dull as he was, and so exasperated me, that I 
felt inclined to take him in my arms (as the robber in 
the story-book is said to have taken the old lady) and 
seat him on the fire. 

One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, 
that until relief came, neither of us could relinquish the 
fire. There we stood, well squared up before it, shoulder 
to shoulder and foot to foot, with our hands behind us, 
not budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in 
the drizzle at the door, my breakfast was put on 
table, Drummle's was cleared away, the waiter 
invited me to begin, I nodded, we both stood our 
ground. 

"Have you been to the Grove since?" said Drummle. 

" No," said I, " I had quite enough of the Finches the 
last time I was there." 

"Was that when we had a difference of opinion?' 

"Yes," I replied, very shortly. 

"Come, come! they let you off easily enough," 
sneered Drummle. "You shouldn't have lost your 
temper." v. 

Mr. Drummle," said I, "you are not competent to 



tt 



348 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

give advice on that subject. When I lose my temper 
(not that I admit having done so on that occasion), I 
don't throw glasses." 

" I do/' said Drummle. 

After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased 
state of smouldering ferocity, I said : 

" Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and 
I don't think it's an agreeable one." 

"I am sure it's not," said he, superciliously over his 
shoulder; "I don't think anything about it." 

" And therefore," I went on, " with your leave, I will 
suggest that we hold no kind of communication in 
future." 

"Quite my opinion," said Drummle, "and what I 
should have suggested myself, or done — more likely — 
without suggesting. But don't lose your temper. 
Haven't you lost enough without that?" 

" What do you mean, sir?" 

" Waiter ! " said Drummle, by way of answering me. 

The waiter reappeared. 

"Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the 
young lady don't ride to-day, and that I dine at the 
young lady's?" 

"Quite so, sir." 

When the waiter had felt my fast-cooling tea-pot with 
the palm of his hand, and had looked imploringly at 
me, and had gone out, Drummle, careful not to move 
the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket and 
bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking 
and boiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word 
further, without introducing Estella's name, which I 
could not endure to hear him utter; and therefore I 
looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were no 
one present, and forced myself to silence. How long 
we might have remained in this ridiculous position it is 
impossible to say, but for the incursion of three thriving 
farmers — laid on by the waiter, I think — who came into 
the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and rub- 
bing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at 
the fire, we were obliged to give way. 

I saw him through the window, seizing his horse's 
mane, and mounting in his blundering brutal manner, 
and sidling and backing away. I thought he was gone, 
when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 349 

* 

his mouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dust- 
coloured dress appeared with what was wanted — I could 
not have said from where : whether from the inn yard, 
or the street, or where not — and as Drummle leaned 
down from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, 
with a jerk of his head towards the coffee-room win- 
dows, the slouching shoulders, and ragged hair, of this ' 
man whose back was towards me, reminded me of* 
Orlick. 

Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time 
whether it were he or no, or after all to touch the break- 
fast, I washed the weather and the journey from my 
face and hands, and went out to the memorable old 
house that it would have been so much the better for 
me never to have entered, never to have seen. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 



IN the room where the dressing-table stood, and where 
the wax candles burnt on the wall, I found Miss 
Havisham and Estella ; Miss Havisham seated on a 
settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. 
Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking 
on. They both raised their eyes as I went in, and both 
saw an alteration in me. I derived that, from the look 
they interchanged. 

"And what wind," said Miss Havisham, " blows you 
here, Pip?" 

Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was 
rather confused. Estella, pausing for a moment in her 
knitting with her eyes upon me, and then going on, I 
fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as plainly 
as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she 
perceived I had discovered my real benefactor. 

" Miss Havisham " said I, " I went to Richmond yes- 
terday, to speak to Estella ; and finding that some wind 
had blown her here, I followed." 

Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth 
time to sit down, I took the chair by the dressing-table, 
which I had often seen her occupy. With all that ruin 
at my feet and about me, it seemed a natural place for 
me, that day. 



350 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will 
say before you, presently — in a few moments. It will 
not surprise you, it will not displease you. I am as un- 
happy as you can ever have meant me to be." 

Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I 
could see in the action of Estella's fingers as they 
worked, that she attended to what I said ; but she did 
not look up. 

" I have found out who my patron is. It is not a for- 
tunate discovery, and is not likely ever to enrich me 
in reputation, station, fortune, anything. There are 
reasons why I must say no more of that. It is not my 
secret, but another's." 

As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and 
considering how to go on, Miss Havisham repeated, 
" It is not your secret, but another's. Well ? " 

" When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss 
Havisham ; when I belonged to the village over yonder 
that I wish I had never left ; I suppose I did really come 
here, as any other chance boy might have come — as a 
kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be 
paid for it ? " 

" Ay, Pip," replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding 
her head • " you did." 

"And tnat Mr. Jaggers " 

66 Mr. Jaggers," said Miss Havisham, taking me up in 
a firm tone, "had nothing to do with it, and knew 
nothing of it. His being my lawyer, and his being the 
lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the 
same relation towards numbers of people, and it might 
easily arise. Be that as it may, it did arise, and was 
not brought about by any one." 

Any one might have seen in her haggard face that 
there was no suppression or evasion so far. 

" But when I fell into the mistake I have so long re- 
mained in, at least you led me on ? " said I. 

"Yes," she returned, again nodding steadily, "I let 
you go on." 

" Was that kind ? " 

"Who am I," cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick 
upon the floor and flashing into wrath so suddenly that 
Estella glanced up at her in surprise, " who am I, for 
God's sake, that I should be kind ! " 

It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 351 

meant to make it. I told her so, as she sat brooding 
after this outburst. 

"Well, well, well!" she said. " What else?" 

"I was liberally paid for my old attendance here," I 
said to soothe her, "in being apprenticed, and I have 
asked these questions only for my own information. 
What follows has another (and I hope more disinterested) 
purpose. In humouring my mistake, Miss Havisham, 
you punished — practised on — perhaps you will supply 
whatever term expresses your intention, without offence 
— your self-seeking relations?" 

" I did. Why, they would have it so ! So would you. 
What has been my history, that I should be at the pains 
of entreating either them or you not to have it so ! You 
made your own snares. J never made them." 

Waiting until she was quiet again — for this, too, 
flashed out of her in a wild and sudden way — I went on. 

"I have been thrown among one family of your 
relations, Miss Havisham, and have been constantly 
among them since I went to London. I know them to 
have been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. 
And I should be false and base if I did not tell you, 
whether it is acceptable to you or no, and whether you 
are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you deeply 
wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, 
if you suppose them to be otherwise than generous, up- 
right, open, and incapable of anything designing or 
mean." 

"They are your friends," said Miss Havisham. 

"They made themselves my friends," said I, " when 
they supposed me to have superseded them; and when 
Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and Mistress Camilla, 
were not my friends, I think." 

This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was 
glad to see, to do them good with her. She looked at 
me keenly for a little while, and then said quietly: 

" What do you want for them?" 

"Only," said I, "that you would not confound them 
with the others. They may be of the same blood, but, 
believe me, they are not of the same nature." 

Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated: 

"What do you want for them? " 

"I am not so cunning, you see," I said, in answer, 
conscious that I reddened a little, "as that I could hide 



352 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

from you, even if I desired, that I do want something. 
Miss Havisham, if you would spare the money to do 
my friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which 
from the nature of the case must be done without his 
knowledge, I could show you how." 

"Why must it be done without his knowledge?" she 
asked, settling her hands upon her stick, that she might 
regard me the more attentively. 

" Because," said I, " I began the service myself, more 
than two years ago, without his knowledge, and I don't 
want to be betrayed. Why I fail in my ability to finish 
it, I cannot explain. It is a part of the secret which is 
another person's and not mine." 

She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned 
them on the fire. After watching it for what appeared 
in the silence and by the light of the slowly wasting 
candles to be a long time, she was roused by the col- 
lapse of some of the red coals, and looked towards me 
again — at first, vacantly — then, with a gradually con- 
centrating attention. All this time, Estella knitted on. 
When Miss Havisham had fixed her attention on me, 
she said, speaking as if there had been no lapse in our 
dialogue : 

"What else?" 

" Estella," said I, turning to her now, and trying to 
command my trembling voice, "you know I love you. 
You know that I have loved you long and dearly." 

She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus 
addressed, and her fingers plied their work, and she 
looked at me with an unmoved countenance. I saw 
that Miss Havisham glanced from me to her, and from 
her to me. 

" I should have said this sooner, but for my long mis- 
take. It induced me to hope that Miss Havisham meant 
us for one another. While I thought you could not help 
yourself, as it were, I refrained from saying it. But I 
must say it now." 

Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her 
fingers still going, Estella shook her head. 

" I know," said I, in answer to that action; " I know, 
I have no hope that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. 
I am ignorant what may become of me very soon, how 
poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love you. I 
have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house," 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 353 

Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her 
fingers busy she shook her head again. 

"It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, hor- 
ribly cruel to practice on the susceptibility of a poor 
boy, and to torture me through all these years with a 
vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on 
the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. 
I think that in the endurances of her own trial, she 
forgot mine, Estella." 

I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and 
hold it there, as she sat looking by turns at Estella and 
at me. 

" It seems," said Estella very calmly, "that there are 
sentiments, fancies — I don't know how to call them — 
which I am not able to comprehend. When you say 
you lcare me, I know what you mean, as a form of 
words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my 
breast, you touch nothing there. I don't care for what 
you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, 
have I not?" 

I said in a miserable manner, " Yes." 

" Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought 
I did not mean it. Now, did you not think so?" 

" I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, 
so young, untried, and beautiful, Estella ! Surely it is 
not in Nature." 

"It is in my nature," she returned. And then she 
added, with a stress upon the words, " It is in the nature 
formed within me. I make a great difference between 
you and all other people when I say so much. I can do 
no more." 

" Is it not true," said I, " that Bentley Drummle is in 
town here, and pursuing you?" 

"It is quite true," she replied, referring to him with 
the indifference of utter contempt. 

" That you encourage him, and ride out with him, 
and that he dines with you this very day ? " 

She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, 
but again replied, " Quite true." 

"You cannot love him, Estella!" 

Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted 
rather angrily, " What have I told you ? Do you still 
think, in spite of it, that I do not mean what I say? " 

"You would never marry him, Estella?" 
vol. i, 23 



354 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered 
for a moment with her work in her hands. Then she 
said, " Why not tell you the truth ? I am going to be 
married to him." 

I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to 
control myself better than I could have expected, con- 
sidering what agony it gave me to hear her say those 
words. When I raised my face again, there was such 
a ghastly look upon Miss Havisham's, that it impressed 
me, even in my passionate hurry and grief. 

"Estella, dearest dearest Estella, do not let Miss 
Havisham lead you into this fatal step. Put me aside 
for ever— you have done so, I well know — but bestow 
yourself on some worthier person than Drummle. Miss 
Havisham gives you to him, as the greatest slight and 
injury that could" be done to the many far better men 
who admire you, and to the few who truly love you. 
Among those few, there may be one who loves you even 
as dearly, though he has not loved you as long, as I. 
Take him, and I can bear it better for your sake ! " 

My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed 
as if it would have been touched with compassion, if 
she could have rendered me at all intelligible to her own 
mind. 

"I am going," she said again, in a gentler voice, ''to 
be married to him. The preparations for my marriage 
are making, and I shall be married soon. Why do you 
injuriously introduce the name of my mother by adop- 
tion ? It is my own act." 

" Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon 
a brute ? " 

" On whom should I fling myself away? " she retorted, 
with a smile. "Should I fling myself away upon the 
man who would the soonest feel (if people do feel such 
things) that I took nothing to him ? There ! It is done. 
I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to 
leading me into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havi- 
sham would have had me wait, and not marrv vet; but 
I am tired of the life I have led, which has very few 
charms for me, and I am willing enough to change 
it. Say no more. We shall never understand each 
other." 

" Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute ! " I urged 
in despair, 




MISS HAVISHAM AND ESTELLA. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 355 

" Doirt be afraid of my being a blessing to him," said 
Estella ; "I shall not be that. Come! Here is my 

hand. Do we part on this, you visionary boy or 

man ?" 

" O Estella ! " I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast 
on her hand, do what I would to restrain them : ' ' even 
if I remained in England and could hold my head up 
with the rest, how could I see you Drummle's wife! " 

"Nonsense," she returned, "nonsense. This will pass 
in no time." 

"Never, Estella !" 

" You will get me out of your thoughts in a week." 

" Out of my thoughts ! You are part of my existence, 
part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever 
read, since I first came here, the rough common boy 
whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have 
been in every prospect I have ever seen since — on the 
river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the 
clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the 
woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the 
embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has 
ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the 
strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, 
or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than 
your presence and influence have been to me, there and 
everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of 
my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my char- 
acter, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. 
But, in this separation I associate you only with the 
good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for 
you must have done me far more good than harm, let 
me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless 
you, God forgive you! " 

In what ecstacy of unhappiness I got these broken 
words out of myself, I don't know. The rhapsody 
welled up within me, like blood from an inward wound, 
and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lin- 
gering moments, and so I left her. But ever after- 
wards, I remembered — and soon afterwards with 
stronger reason — that while Estella looked at me merely 
with incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss 
Havisham, her hand still covering her heart, seemed 
all resolved into a ghastly stare of pity and remorse. 

All done, all gone ! So much was done and gone, that 



356 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

when I went out at the gate, the light of day seemed 
of a darker colour that when I went in. For a while, 
I hid myself among some lanes and by-paths, and then 
struck off to walk all the way to London. For, I had 
by that time come to myself so far, as to consider that 
I could not go back to the inn and see Drummle there; 
that I could not bear to sit upon the coach and be spoken 
to; that I could do nothing half so good for myself as 
tire myself out. 

It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. 
Pursuing the narrow intricacies of the streets which at 
that time tended westward near the Middlesex shore of 
the river, my readiest access to the Temple was close 
by the river-side, through "Whitefriars. I was not 
expected till to-morrow, but I had my keys, and, if 
Herbert were gone to bed, could get to bed myself 
without disturbing him. 

As it seldom happened that I came in at that White- 
friars gate after the Temple was closed, and as I was 
very muddy and weary, I did not take it ill that the 
night-porter examined me with much attention as he 
held the gate a little way open for me to pass in. To 
help his memory I mentioned my name. 

" I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here's a 
note, sir. The messenger that brought it, said would 
you be so good as read it by my lantern." 

Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It 
was directed to Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of 
the superscription were the words, "Please read this, 
here." I opened it, the watchman holding up his light, 
and read inside, in Wemmick's writing : 

"Don't go Home." 



CHAPTER XLV. 



TURNING from the Temple gate as soon as I had read 
the warning, I made the best of my way to Fleet- 
street, and there got a late hackney chariot and drove 
to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a 
bed was always to be got there at any hour of the night, 
and the chamberlain, letting me in at his ready wicket, 
lighted the candle next in order on his shelf, and showed 
me straight into the bedroom next in order to his list. It 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 357 

was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a 
despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling 
over the whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs 
into the fire-place and another into the doorway, and 
squeezing the wretched little washing-stand in quite a 
Divinely Righteous manner. 

As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had 
brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitu- 
tional rush-light of those virtuous days — an object like 
the ghost of a walking-cane, which instantly broke its 
back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be 
lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement 
at the bottom of a high tin tower, perforated with round 
holes that made a staringly wide-awake pattern on the 
walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there, foot- 
sore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no 
more close my own eyes than I could close the eyes of 
this foolish Argus. And thus, in the gloom and death 
of the night, we stared at one another. 

What a doleful night ! How anxious, how dismal, 
how long ! There was an inhospitable smell in the 
room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I looked up into 
the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what 
a number of bluebottle flies from the butchers', and 
earwigs from the market, and grubs from the country, 
must be holding on up there, lying by for next summer. 
This led me to speculate whether any of them ever 
tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls 
on my face-^-a disagreable turn of thought, suggesting 
other and more objectionable approaches up my back. 
When I had lain awake a little while, those extraor- 
dinary voices with which silence teems, began to make 
themselves audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace 
sighed, the little washing-stand ticked, and one guitar- 
string played occasionally in the chest of drawers. 
At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired 
a new expression, and in every one of those staring 
rounds I saw written, Don't go Home. 

Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded oi\ 
me, they never warded off this Don't go home. It plaited 
itself into whatever I thought of, as a bodily pain would 
have done. Not long before, I had read in the news- 
papers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hum- 
mums in the night, and had gone to bed, and had 



358 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

destroyed himself, and had been found in the morning 
weltering in blood. It came into my head that he must 
have occupied this very vault of mine, and I got out of 
bed to assure myself that there were no red marks about; 
then opened the door to look out into the passages, 
and cheer myself with the companionship of a distant 
light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. 
But all this time, why I was not to go home, and what 
had happened at home, and when I should go home, 
and whether Provis was safe at home, were questions 
occupying my mind so busily, that one might have sup- 
posed there could be no more room in it for any other 
theme. Even when I thought of Estella, and how we 
had parted that day for ever, and when I recalled all 
the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and 
tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted — 
even then I was pursuing, here and there and every- 
where, the caution Don't go home. When at last I dozed, 
in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became a vast 
shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative 
mood, present tense: Do not thou go home, let him not 
go home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go home, 
let not them go home. Then, potentially; I may not and 
I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, 
and should not go home; until I felt that I was going 
distracted, and rolled over on the pillow, and looked at 
the staring rounds upon the wall again. 

I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; 
for it was plain that I must see Wemmick before see- 
ing any one else, and equally plain that this was a case 
in which his Walworth sentiments, only, could be taken. 
It was a relief to get out of the room where the night 
had been so miserable, and I needed no second knock- 
ing at the door to startle me from my uneasy bed. 

The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight 
o'clock. The little servant happening to be entering 
the fortress with two hot rolls, I passed through the 
postern and crossed the drawrbridge, in her company, 
and so came without announcement into the presence 
of Wemmick as he was making tea for himself and the 
Aged. An open door afforded a perspective view of the 
Aged in bed. 

" Halloa, Mr. Pip!" said Wemmick. "You did come 
home, then ?" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 359 

" Yes," I returned; "but I didn't go home." 

"That's all right/' said he, rubbing his hands. M I 
left a note for you at each of the Temple gates, on the 
chance. Which gate did you come to ? " 

I told him. • 

"I'll go round to the others in the course of the day 
and destroy the notes," said Wemmick; "it's a good 
rule never to leave documentary evidence if you can help 
it, because you don't know when it may be put in. I'm 
going to take a liberty with you. — Would you mind 
toasting this sausage for the Aged P. ?" 

I said I should be delighted to do it. 

" Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne," 
said Wemmick to the little servant; "which leaves us 
to ourselves, don't you see, Mr. Pip?" he added, wink- 
ing, as she disappeared. 

I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our 
discourse proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the 
Aged's sausage and he buttered the crumb of the Aged's 
roll. 

• "Now, Mr. Pip, you know," said Wemmick, "you 
and I understand one another. We are in our private 
and personal capacities, and we have been engaged in 
a confidential transaction before to-day. Official senti- 
ments are one thing. We are extra official." 

I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I 
had already lighted the Aged's sausage like a torch, 
and been obliged to blow it out. 

" I accidentally heard, yesterday morning," said Wem- 
mick, "being in a certain place where I once took you 
— even between you and me, it's as well not to mention 
names when avoidable " 

" Much better not," said I. "I understand you." 

" I heard there by chance, yesterday morning," said 
Wemmick, "that a certain person not altogether of 
uncolonial pursuits, and not unpossessed of portable 
property — I don't know who it may really be — we won't 
name this person " 

" Not necessary," said I. 

" — had made some little stir in a certain part of the 
world where a good many people go, not always in 
gratification of their own inclinations, and not quite 
irrespective of the government expense " 

In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the 



360 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Aged's sausage, and greatly discomposed both my own 
attention and Wemmick'§; for which I apologised. 

" — by disappearing from such place, and being no 
more heard of thereabouts. From which," said Wem- 
mick, "conjectures had been raised and theories 
formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in 
Garden-court, Temple, had been watched, and might 
be watched again." 

"By whom?" said I. 

" I wouldn't go into that," said Wemmick, evasively, 
"it might clash with official responsibilities. I heard 
it, as I have in my time heard other curious things in 
the same place. I don't tell it you on information 
received. I heard it." 

He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he 
spoke, and set forth the Aged's breakfast neatly on a 
little tray. Previous to placing it before him, he went 
into the Aged's room with a clean white cloth, and tied 
the same under the old gentleman's chin, and propped 
him up, and put his nightcap on one side, and gave him 
quite a rakish air. Then he placed his breakfast before 
him with great care, and said, "All right, ain't you, 
Aged P.?" To which the cheerful Aged replied "All 
right, John, my boy, all right! " As there seemed to be 
a tacit understanding that the Aged was not in a pre- 
sentable state, and was therefore to be considered 
invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignor- 
ance of these proceedings. 

" This watching of me at my chambers (which I have 
once had reason to suspect)," I said to Wemmick when 
he came back, " is inseparable from the person to whom 
you have adverted; is it?" 

Wemmick looked very serious. "I couldn't under- 
take to say that of my own knowledge. I mean, I 
couldn't undertake to say it was at first. But it either 
is, or it will be, or it's in great danger of being." 

As I saw that he was restrained by f ealty to Little 
Britain from saying as much as he could, and as I knew 
with thankfulness to him how far out of his way he 
went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I 
told him, after a little meditation over the fire, that I 
would like to ask him a question, subject to his answer- 
ing or not answering, as he deemed right, and sure that 
his course would be right. He paused in his breakf ast> 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 361 

and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves 
(his notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any 
coat), he nodded to me once, to put my question. 

"You have heard of a man of bad character, whose 
true name is Compeyson?" 

He answered with one other nod. 

"Is he living?" 

One other nod. 

"Is he in London ?" 

He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office 
exceedingly, gave me one last nod, and went on with 
his breakfast. 

"Now," said Wemmick, "questioning being over;" 
which he emphasised and repeated for my guidance; 
" I come to what I did, after hearing what I heard. I 
went to Garden-court to find you; not finding you, I 
went to Clarriker's to find Mr. Herbert." 

"And him you found?" said I, with great anxiety. 

" And him I found. Without mentioning any names 
or going into any details, I gave him to understand that 
if he was aware of anybody — Tom, Jack, or Richard — 
being about the chambers, or about the immediate 
neighbourhood, he better get Tom, Jack, or Richard, 
out of the way while you were out of the way." 

" He would be greatly puzzled what to do?" 

" He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I 
gave him my opinion that it was not safe to try to get 
Tom, Jack, or Richard, too far out of the way at present. 
Mr. Pip, I'll tell you something. Tinder existing cir- 
cumstances there is no place like a great city when 
you are once in it. Don't break cover too soon. Lie 
close. Wait till things slacken, before you try the 
open, even for foreign air." 

I thanked him for this valuable advice, and asked 
him what Herbert had done? 

"Mr. Herbert," said Wemmick, "after being all of a 
heap for half an hour, struck out a plan. He men- 
tioned to me as a secret, that he was courting a young 
lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden 
Pa. Which Pa having been in the Purser line of life, 
lies a-bed in a bow-window where he can see the ships 
sail up and down the river. You are acquainted with 
the young lady, most probably?" 

" Not personally," said I. 



362 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

The truth was, that she had objected to me as an ex- 
pensive companion who did Herbert no good, and that, 
when Herbert had first proposed to present me to her, 
she had received the proposal with such very moder- 
ate warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to 
confide the state of the case to me, with a view to the 
lapse of a little time before I made her acquaintance. 
When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by 
stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful 
philosophy ; he and his affianced, for their part, had 
naturally not been very anxious to introduce a third 
person into their interviews; and thus, although I was 
assured that I had risen in Clara's esteem, and although 
the young lady and I had long regularly interchanged 
messages and remembrances by Herbert, I had never 
seen her. However, I did not trouble Wemmick with 
those particulars. 

" The house with the bow-window," said Wemmick, 
" being by the river-side, down the Pool there between 
Limehouse and Greenwich, and being kept, it seems, 
by a very respectable widow who has a furnished 
upper floor to let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I 
think of that as a temporary tenement for Tom, Jack, 
or Richard ? Now, I thought very well of it, for three 
reasons F 11 give you. That is to say. Firstly. It's 
altogether out of all your beats, and is well away from 
the usual heap of streets great and small. Secondly. 
Without going near it yourself, you could always hear 
of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. 
Herbert. Thirdly. After a while and when it might 
be prudent, if you should want to slip Tom, Jack, or 
Richard, on board a foreign packet-boat, there he is 
— ready." 

Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked 
Wemmick again and again, and begged him to 
proceed. 

"Well, sir! Mr. -Herbert threw himself into the 
business with a will, and by nine o'clock last night 
he housed Tom, Jack, or Richard — whichever it may 
be — you and I don't want to know — quite success- 
fully. At the old lodgings it was understood that he 
was summoned to Dover, and in fact he was taken 
down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now, 
another great advantage of all this is, that it was 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 303 

done without you, and when, if any one was con- 
cerning himself about your movements, you must be 
known to be ever so many miles off and quite other- 
wise engaged. This diverts suspicion and confuses it; 
and for the same reason I recommended that even if 
you came back last night, you should not go home. 
It brings in more confusion, and you want confusion." 

Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here 
looked at his watch, and began to get his coat on. 

" And now, Mr. Pip," said he, with his hands still in 
the sleeves, " I have probably done the most I can do; 
but if I can ever do more — from a Walworth point of 
view, and in a strictly private and personal capacity — 
I shall be glad to do it. Here's the address. There can 
be no harm in your going here to-night and seeing for 
yourself that all is well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, 
before you go home — which is another reason for your 
not going home last night. But after you have gone 
home, don't go back here. You are very welcome, I 
am sure, Mr. Pip;" his hands were now out of his 
sleeves, and I was shaking them; "and let me finally 
impress one important point upon you." He laid his 
hands upon my shoulders, and added in a solemn 
whisper : " Avail yourself of this evening to lay hold 
of his portable property. You don't know what may 
happen to him. Don't let anything happen to the 
portable property." 

Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wem- 
mick on this point, I forbore to try. 

"Time's up," said Wemmick, "and I must be off. 
If you had nothing more pressing to do than to keep 
here till dark, that's what I should advise. You look 
very much worried, and it would do you good to 
have a perfectly quiet day with the Aged — he'll be up 
presently — and a little bit of you remember the 

pig?" 

" Of course," said I. 

"Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage you 
toasted was his, and he was in all respects a first- 
rater. Do try him, if it is only for old acquaintance 
sake. Good-by, Aged Parent ! " in a cheery shout. 

" All right, John; all right, my boy ! " piped the old 
man from within. 

I soon fell asleep before Wemmick's fire, and the 






364 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Aged and I enjoyed one another's society by falling 
asleep before it more or less all day. We had loin of 
pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate, and I 
nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I 
failed to do it drowsily. When it was quite dark, I left 
the Aged preparing the fire for toast; and I inferred 
from the number of teacups, as well as from his glances 
at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins 
was expected. 



CHAPTER XLVL 



EIGHT o'clock had struck before I got into the air 
that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips 
and shavings of the longshore boat-builders, and mast 
oar and block makers. All that water-side region of 
the upper and lower Pool below Bridge, was unknown 
ground to me, and when I struck down by the river, I 
found that the spot I wanted was not where I had sup- 
posed it to be, and was anything but easy to find. It 
was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had 
no other guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green 
Copper Rope-Walk. 

It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry 
docks I lost myself among, what old hulls of ships in 
course of being knocked to pieces, what ooze and slime 
and other dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders 
and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting 
into the ground though for years off duty, what moun- 
tainous country of accumulated casks and timber, how 
many rope-walks that were not the Old Green Copper. 
After several times falling short of my destination and 
as often over-shooting it, I came unexpectedly round a 
corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a fresh kind of 
place, all circumstances considered, where the wind 
from the river had room to turn itself round; and there 
were two or three trees in it, and there was the stump 
of a ruined windmill, and there was the Old Green 
Copper Rope-Walk — whose long and narrow vista I 
could trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden 
frames set in the ground, that looked like superannu- 
ated haymaking-rakes which had grown old and lost 
most of their teeth. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 365 

Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond 
Bank, a house with a wooden front and three stories of 
bow- window (not bay-window, which is another thing), 
I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there, 
Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I 
knocked, and an elderly woman of a pleasant and thriv- 
ing appearance responded. She was immediately de- 
posed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into 
the parlour and shut the door. It was an odd sensation 
to see his very familiar face established quite at home 
in that very unfamiliar room and region; and I found 
myself looking at him much as I looked at the corner 
cupboard with the glass and china, the shells upon the 
chimney-piece, and the coloured engravings on the 
wall, representing the death of Captain Cook, a ship- 
launch, and his Majesty King George the Third in a 
state coachman's wig, leather breeches, and top-boots, 
on the terrace at Windsor. 

"All is well, Handel," said Herbert, "and he is quite 
satisfied, though eager to see you. My dear girl is with 
her father; and if you'll wait till she comes down, I'll 

make you known to her, and then we'll go up-stairs. 

That's her father." 

I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead 
and had probably expressed the fact in my countenance. 

" I am afraid he is a sad old rascal," said Herbert, 
smiling, " but I have never seen him. Don't you smell 
rum? He is always at it." 

"At rum?" said I. 

"Yes," returned Herbert, " and you may suppose how 
mild it makes his gout. He persists, too, in keeping 
all the provisions up-stairs in his room, and serving 
them out. He keeps them on shelves over his head, 
and will weigh them all. His room must be like a 
chandler's shop." 

While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a 
prolonged roar, and then died away. 

" What else can be the consequence," said Herbert, 
in explanation, " if he will cut the cheese? A man with 
the gout in his right hand — and everywhere else — can't 
expect to get through a Double Gloucester without 
hurting himself." 

He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he 
gave another furious roar. 







366 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

'•' To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a god- 
send to Mrs. Whimple," said Herbert, "for of course 
people in general won't stand that noise. A curious 
place, Handel; isn't it?" 

It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well 
kept and clean. 

" Mrs. Whimple," said Herbert, when I told him so, 
"is the best of housewives, and I really do not know 
what my Clara would do without her motherly help. 
For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no 
relation in the world but old Gruff andgrim." 

" Surely that's not his name, Herbert? " 

"No, no," said Herbert, "that's my name for him. 
His name is Mr. Barley. But what a blessing it is for 
the son of my father and mother, to love a girl who has 
no relations, and who can never bother herself, or any- 
body else, about her family! " 

Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now 
reminded me, that he first knew Miss Clara Barley when 
she was completing her education at an establishment 
at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled home 
to nurse her father, he and she had confided their 
affection to the motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it 
had been fostered and regulated with equal kindness 
and discretion ever since. It was understood that nothing 
of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old 
Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to the 
consideration of any subject more psychological than 
Gout, Rum, and Purser's stores. 

As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old 
Barley's sustained growl vibrated in the beam that 
crossed the ceiling, the room door opened, and a very 
pretty slight dark-eyed girl of twenty or so, came in 
with a basket in her hand: whom Herbert tenderly 
relieved of the basket, and presented blushing, as 
"Clara." She really was a most charming girl, and 
might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that trucu- 
lent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service, 

"Look here," said Herbert, showing me the basket, 
with a compassionate and tender smile after we had 
talked a little; here's poor Clara's supper, served out 
every night. Here's her allowance of bread, and here's 
her slice of cheese, and here's her rum. — which I drink. 
This is Mr. Barley's breakfast for to-morrow, served out 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 367 

to be cooked. Two mutton chops, three potatoes, some 
split peas, a little flour, two ounces of butter, a pinch of 
salt and all this black pepper. It's stewed up together, 
and taken hot, and it's a nice thing for the gout, I should 
think!" 

There was something so natural and winning in Clara's 
resigned way of looking at these stores in detail, as 
Herbert pointed them out, — and something so confiding, 
loving, and innocent, in her modest manner of yielding 
herself to Herbert's embracing arm — and something so 
gentle in her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond 
Bank, by Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper 
Rope- Walk, with Old Barley growling in the beam — that 
I would not have undone the engagement between her 
and Herbert, for all the money in the pocket-book I had 
never opened. 

I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, 
when suddenly the growl swelled into a roar again, and 
a frightful bumping noise was heard above, as if a giant 
with a wooden leg were trying to bore it through the 
ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, 
"Papa wants me, darling! " and ran away. 

" There is an unconscionable old shark for you! " said 
Herbert. "What do you suppose he wants now, 
Handel?" 

" I don't know," said I. " Something to drink? " 

" That's it!" cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess 
of extraordinary merit. " He keeps his grog ready- 
mixed in a little tub on the table. Wait a moment, and 
you'll hear Clara lift him up to take some. — There he 
goes!" Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the 
end. " Now," said Herbert, as it was succeeded by 
silence, "he's drinking. Now," said Herbert, as the 
growl resounded in the beam once more, "he's down 
again on his back! " 

Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accom- 
panied me up-stairs to see our charge. As we passed 
Mr. Barley's door, he was heard hoarsely muttering 
within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the fol- 
lowing Refrain; in which I substitute good wishes for 
something quite the reverse. 

" Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill Barley. Here's 
old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley 
on the flat of his back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat 



368 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

of his back, like a drifting old dead flounder, here's your 
old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy ! Bless you." 

In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me 
the invisible Barley would commune with himself by 
the day and night together; often while it was light, 
having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which 
was fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping 
the river. 

In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which 
were fresh and airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less 
audible than below, I found Provis comfortably settled. 
He expressed no alarm, and seemed to feel none that 
was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he was 
softened — indefinably, for I could not have said how, 
and could never afterwards recal how when I tried; 
but certainly. 

The opportunity that the day's rest had given me for 
reflection, had resulted in my fully determining to say 
nothing to him respecting Compeyson. For anything I 
knew, his animosity towards the man might otherwise 
lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own 
destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down 
with him by his fire, I asked him first of all whether 
he relied on Wemmick's judgment and sources of infor- 
mation? 

" Ay, ay, dear boy! " he answered, with a grave nod, 
" Jaggers knows." 

" Then, I have talked with Wemmick," said I, "and 
have come to tell you what caution he gave me and 
what advice." 

This I did accurately, with the reservation just men- 
tioned: and I told him how Wemmick had heard, in 
Newgate prison (whether from officers or prisoners I 
could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and 
that my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick 
had recommended his keeping close for a time, and my 
keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had said 
about getting him abroad. I added, that of course, 
when the time came, I should go with him, or should 
follow close upon him, as might be safest in Wemmick's 
judgment. What was to follow that, I did not touch 
upon; neither, indeed was I at all clear or comfortable 
about it in my own mind, now that I saw him in that 
softer condition, and in declared peril for my sake. As 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 369 

to altering my way of living, by enlarging my expenses, 
I put it to him whether in our present unsettled and 
difficult circumstances, it would not be simply ridicu- 
lous, if it were no worse? 

He could not deny this, and indeed was very reason- 
able throughout. His coming back was a venture, he 
said, and he had always known it to be a venture. He 
would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and 
he had very little to fear of his safety with such good 
help. 

Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pon- 
dering, here said that something had come into his 
thoughts arising out of Wemmick's suggestion, which 
it might be worth while to pursue. f ' We are both good 
watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river 
ourselves when the right time comes. No boat would 
then be hired for the purpose, and no boatmen; that 
would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any 
chance is worth saving. Never mind the season; don't 
you think it might be a good thing if you began at once 
to keep a boat at the foot of the Temple stairs, and 
were in the habit of rowing up and down the river? 
You fall into that habit, and then who notices or minds? 
Do it twenty or fifty times, and there is nothing special 
in your doing it the twenty-first or fifty-first." 

I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by 
it. We agreed that it should be carried into execution, 
and that Provis should never recognise us if we came 
below Bridge and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But, 
we further agreed that he should pull down the blind 
in that part of his window which gave upon the east, 
whenever he saw us and all was right. 

Our conference being now ended, and everything ar- 
ranged, I rose to go; remarking to Herbert that he 
and I had better not go home together, and that I would 
take half an hour's start of him. " I don't like to leave 
you here," I said to Provis, "though I cannot doubt 
your being safer here than near me. Good-by ! " 

"Dear boy," he answered, clasping my hands, "I 
don't know when we may meet again, and I don't like 
Good-by. Say Good Night ! " 

" Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, 
and when the time comes you may be certain I shall be 
ready. Good night, Good night!" 
rOL. i. 24 



370 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

We thought it best that he should stay in his own 
rooms, and we left him on the landing outside his door, 
holding a light over the stair-rail to light us down stairs. 
Looking back at him, I thought of the first night of his 
return when our positions were reversed, and when I 
little supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and 
anxious at parting from him as it was now. 

Old Barley was growling and swearing when we re- 
passed his door, with no appearance of having ceased 
or of meaning to cease. When we got to the foot of the 
stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the 
name of Pro vis? He replied, certainly not, and that 
the lodger was Mr. Campbell. He also explained that 
the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there, was, that he 
(Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt 
a strong personal interest in his being well cared for, 
and living a secluded life. So, when he went into the 
parlour where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were seated at 
work, I said nothing of my own interest in Mr. Camp- 
bell, but kept it to myself. 

When I had taken leave of the pretty gentle dark- 
eyed girl, and the motherly woman who had not out- 
lived her honest sympathy with a little affair of true 
love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Rope-Walk had 
grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as 
old as the hills, and might swear like a whole field of 
troopers, but there were redeeming youth and trust and 
hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to overflowing. 
And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and 
went home very sadly. 

All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had 
seen them. The windows of the rooms of that side, 
lately occupied by Provis, were dark and still, and 
there was no lounger in Garden-court. I walked past 
the fountain twice or thrice before I descended the 
steps that were between me and my rooms, but I was 
quite alone. Herbert coming to my bedside when he 
came in — for I went straight to bed, dispirited and 
fatigued — made the same report. Opening one of the 
windows after that, he looked out into the moonlight, 
and told me that the pavement was as solemnly empty 
as the pavement of any Cathedral at that same hour. 

Next day, I set myself to get the boat. It was soon 
done, and the boat was brought round to the Temple 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 371 

stairs, and lay where I could reach her within a minute 
or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and 
practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I 
was often out in cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took 
much note of me after I had been out a few times. At 
first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the hours 
of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It 
was Old London Bridge in those days, and at certain 
states of the tide there was a race and a fall of water 
there which gave it a bad reputation. But I knew well 
enough how to " shoot " the bridge after seeing it done, 
and so began to row about among the shipping in the 
Pool, and down to Erith. The first time I passed Mill 
Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a pair of oars; 
and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind to- 
wards the east came down. Herbert was rarely there 
less frequently than three times in a week, and he never 
brought me a single word of intelligence that was at 
all alarming. Still I knew that there was cause for 
alarm, and I could not get rid of the notion of being 
watched. Once received, it* is a haunting idea; how 
many undesigning persons I suspected of watching me, 
it would be hard to calculate. 

In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man 
who was in hiding. Herbert had sometimes said to me 
that he found it pleasant to stand at one of our windows 
after dark, when the tide was running down, and to 
think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, to- 
wards Clara. But I thought with dread that it was 
flowing towards Magwitch, and that any black mark on 
its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly, silent- 
ly, and surely, to take him. 



CHAPTER XLVIL 



SOME weeks passed without bringing any change. 
We waited for Wemmick, and he made no sign. 
If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and had 
never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar foot- 
ing at the Castle, I might have doubted him; not so for 
a moment, knowing him as I did. 

My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appear- 
ance, and I was presseu for money by more than one 



372 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

creditor. Even I myself began to know the want of 
money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and 
to relieve it by converting some easily spared articles 
of jewellery into cash. But I had quite determined that 
it would be a heartless fraud to take mere money from 
my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts 
and plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened 
pocket-book by Herbert, to hold in his own keeping, and 
I felt a kind of satisfaction — whether it was a false kind 
or a true, I hardly know — in not having profited by his 
generosity since his revelation of himself. 

As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily 
upon me that Estella was married. Fearful of having 
it confirmed, though it was all but a conviction, I 
avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom 
I had confided the circumstances of our last interview) 
never to speak of her to me. Why I hoarded up this 
last wretched little rag of the robe of hope that was rent 
and given to the winds, how do I know ! Why did you 
who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency 
of your own, last year, last month, last week ? 

It was an unhappy life that I lived, and its one domi- 
nant anxiety, towering over all its other anxieties like 
a high mountain above a range of mountains, never 
disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause for 
fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with 
the terror fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me 
sit listening as I would, with dread, for Herbert's re- 
turning step at night, lest it should be fleeter than 
ordinary, and winged with evil news; for all that, and 
much more to like purpose, the round of things went 
on. Condemned to inaction and a state of constant 
restlessness and suspense, I rowed about in my boat, 
and waited, waited, waited, as I best could. 

There were states of the tide when, having been down 
the river, I could not get back through the eddy-chafed 
arches and starlings of old London Bridge; then, 1 left 
my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be 
brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not 
averse to doing this, as it served to make me and my 
boat a commoner incident among the waterside people 
there. From this slight occasion, sprang two meetings 
that I have now to tell of. 

One af ternon late in the month of February, I came 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 373 

ashore at the wharf at dusk. I had pulled down as far 
as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and had turned with 
the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become 
foggy as the sun dropped, and I had to feel my way 
back among the shipping, pretty carefully. Both in 
going and returning, I had seen the signal in his win- 
dow, All well. 

As it was a raw evening and I was cold, I thought I 
would comfort myself with dinner at once; and as I 
had hours of dejection and solitude before me if I went 
home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards go 
to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had 
achieved his questionable triumph, was in that w'ater- 
side neighbourhood (it is nowhere now), and to that 
theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle 
had not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but on the 
contrary, had rather partaken of its decline. He had 
been ominously heard of, through the playbills, as a 
faithful Black, in connexion with a little girl of noble 
birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seem him as a 
predatory Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like 
a red brick, and an outrageous hat all over bells. 

I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a Geo- 
graphical chop-house — where there were maps of the 
world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard of the 
tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the 
knives — to this day there is scarcely a single chop-house 
within the Lord Mayor's dominions which is not Geo- 
graphical — and wore out the time in dozing over crumbs, 
staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. 
By-and-by, I roused myself and went to the play. 

There I found a virtuous boatswain in his Majesty's 
service — a most excellent man, though I could have 
wished his trousers not quite so tight in some places and 
not quite so loose in others — who knocked all the little 
men's hats over their eyes, though he was very generous 
and brave, and he wouldn't hear of anybody's paying 
taxes, though he was very patriotic. He had a bag of 
money in his pocket, like a pudding in the cloth, and on 
that property married a young person in bed-furniture, 
with great rejoicings; the whole population of Ports- 
mouth (nine in number at the last Census) turning out on 
the beach, to rub their own hands and shake everybody 
else's, and sing "Fill, fill!" A certain dark-complex- 



374 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

ioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything 
else that was proposed to him, and whose heart was 
openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his 
figure-head, proposed to two other Swabs to get all man- 
kind into difficulties; which was so effectually done 
(the Swab family having considerable political influ- 
ence) that it took half the evening to set things right, 
and then it was only brought about through an honest 
little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters, a.nd red 
nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, 
and coming out, and knocking everybody down from 
behind with a gridiron whom he couldn't confute with 
what" he had overheard. This led to Mr. Wopsle's (who 
had never been heard of before) coming in with a star 
and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power 
direct from the Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were 
all to go to prison on the spot, and that he had brought 
the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight 
ackowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, 
unmanned for the first time, respectfully dried his eyes 
on the Jack, and then cheering up and addressing Mr. 
Wopsle as Your Honour, solicited permission to take 
him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle conceding his fin with a 
gracious dignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty 
corner while everybody danced a hornpipe; and from 
that corner, surveying the public with a discontented 
eye, became aware of me. 

The second piece was the last new grand comic Christ- 
mas pantomime, in the first scene of which, it pained 
me to suspect that I detected Mr. Wopsle with red 
worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric 
countenance and a shock of red curtain fringe for his 
hair, engaged in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a 
mine, and displaying great cowardice when his gigan- 
tic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner. But he 
presently presented himself under worthier circum- 
stances; for the Genius of Youthful Love being in want 
of assistance — on account of the parental brutality of 
an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice of his 
daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the object 
in a flour sack, out of the first-floor window — sum- 
moned a sententious Enchanter; and he, coming up 
from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after an appar- 
ently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle m a 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 375 

high-crowned hat, with a necromantic work in one 
volume under his arm. The business of this enchanter 
on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at, but- 
ted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various 
colours, he had a good deal of time on his hands. 
And I observed with great surprise, that he devoted 
it to staring in my direction as if he were lost in 
amazement. 

There was something so remarkable in the increasing 
glare of Mr. Wopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning 
so many things over in his mind and to grow so con- 
fused, that I could not make it out. I sat thinking of 
it, long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large 
watch-case, and still I could not make it out. I was 
still thinking of it when I came out of the theatre 
an hour afterwards, and found him waiting for me 
near the door. 

"How do you do?" said I, shaking hands with him 
as we turned down the street together. " I saw that 
you saw me." 

" Saw you, Mr. Pip ! " he returned. "Yes, of course 
I saw you. But who else was there? " 

"Who else?" 

"It is the strangest thing," said Mr. Wopsle, drift- 
ing into his lost look again ; " and yet I could swear 
to him." 

Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain 
his meaning. 

" Whether I should have noticed him at first but for 
your being there," said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the 
same lost way, "I can't be positive: yet I think I 
should." 

Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed 
to look round me when I went home; for, these myste- 
rious words gave me a chill. 

" Oh ! He can't be in sight," said Mr. Wopsle. " He 
went out, before I went off, I saw him go. " 

Having the reason that I had, for being suspicious, I 
even suspected this poor actor. I mistrusted a design 
to entrap me into some admission. Therefore, I glanced 
at him as we walked on together, but said nothing. 

" I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, 
Mr. Pip, till I saw that you were quite unconscious of 
him, sitting behind you there, like a ghost." 



376 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

My former chill crept over me again, but I was re- 
solved not to speak yet, for it was quite consistent with 
his words that he might be set on to induce me to con- 
nect these references with Pro vis. Of course, I was 
perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been 
there. 

" I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip ; indeed I see 
you do. But it is so very strange ! You'll hardly believe 
what I am going to tell you. I could hardly believe it 
myself, if you told me. 5 ' 

" Indeed ?" said I. 

" No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a 
certain Christmas Day, when you were quite a child, 
and I dined at Gargery's, and some soldiers came to the 
door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?" 

" I remember it very well." 

" And you remember that there was a chase after two 
convicts, and that we joined in it, and that Gargery 
took you on his back, and that I took the lead and you 
kept up with me as well as you could?" 

" I remember it all very well." Better than he thought 
— except the last clause. 

"And you remember that we came up with the two 
in a ditch, and that there was a scuffle between them, 
and that one of them had been severely handled and 
much mauled about the face, by the other? " 

" I see it all before me." 

"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the 
two in the centre, and that we went on to see the last 
of them, over the black marshes, with the torchlight 
shining on their faces — I am particular about that; with 
the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an 
outer ring of dark night all about us? " 

"Yes," said I. "I remember all that." 

" Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind 
you to-night. I saw him over your shoulder." 

"Steady!" I thought. I asked him then, "Which 
of the two do you suppose you saw ? " 

" The one who had been mauled," he answered 
readily, " and I'll swear I saw him ! The more I think 
of him, the more certain I am of him." 

" This is very curious! " said I, with the best assump- 
tion I could put on, of its being nothing more to me. 
" Very curious indeed! " 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 377 

I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which 
this conversation threw me, or the special and peculiar 
terror I felt at Compeyson's having been behind me 
" like a ghost." For, if he had ever been out of my 
thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding 
had begun, it was in those very moments when he was 
closest to me; and to think that I should be so uncon- 
scious and off my guard after all my care, was as if I 
had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out,, 
and then had found him at my elbow. I could not 
doubt either that he was there, because I was there, and 
that however slight an appearance of danger there 
might be about us, danger was always near and 
active. 

I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the 
man come in? He could not tell me that; he saw me, 
and over my shoulder he saw the man. It was not until 
he had seen him for some time that he began to identify 
him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him 
with me, and known him as somehow belonging to me 
in the old village time. How was he dressed? Prosper- 
ously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought in black. 
Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. 
I believed not, too, for, although in my brooding state 
I had taken no especial notice of the people behind me, 
I thought it likely that a face at all disfigured would 
have attracted my attention. 

When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he 
could recal or I extract, and when I had treated him 
to a little appropriate refreshment after the fatigues of 
the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and 
one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates 
were shut. No one was near me when I went in and 
went home. 

Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious 
council by the fire. But there was nothing to be done, 
saving to communicate to Wemmick what I had that 
night found out, and to remind him that we waited for 
his hint. As I thought that I might compromise him 
if I went too often to the Castle, I made this communi- 
cation by letter. I wrote it before I went to bed and 
went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. 
Herbert and I agreed that we could do nothing else but 
be very cautious, xVnd we were very cautious indeed 



378 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

—more cautious than before, if that were possible — and 
I for my part never went near Chinks's Basin, except 
when I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond 
Bank as I looked at anything else. 



CHAPTER XL VIII. 



THE second of the two meetings referred to in the 
last chapter, occurred about a week after the first. 
I had again left my boat at the wharf below Bridge; 
the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and, un- 
decided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside 
and was strolling along it, surely the most unsettled 
person in all the busy concourse, when a large hand was 
laid upon my shoulder, by some one overtaking me. It 
was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my 
arm. 

"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may 
walk together. Where are you bound for?" 

"For the Temple, I think," said I. 

" Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers. 

"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of 
him in cross-examination, " I do not know, for I have 
not made up my mind." 

" You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You 
don't mind admitting that, I suppose." 

"No," I returned, I don't mind admitting that. 

"And are not engaged?" 

" I don't mind admitting a±so, that I am not engaged." 

"Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine with me." 

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, " Wem- 
mick's coming." So, I changed my excuse into an ac- 
ceptance — the few words I had uttered, serving for the 
beginning of either — and we went along Cheapside and 
slanted off to Little Britain,. while the lights were 
springing up brilliantly in the shop windows, and the 
street lamp-lighters, scarcely finding ground enough to 
plant their ladders on in the midst of the afternoon's 
bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and 
out, opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than 
my rush-light tower at the Hummums had opened white 
eyes in the ghostly wall. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 379 

At the office in Little Britain there was the usual let- 
ter-writing, hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe- 
locking, that closed the business of the day. As I stood 
idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its rising and falling flame 
made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were 
playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me ; while 
the pair of coarse fat office candles that dimly lighted 
Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a corner, were decorated 
with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of a 
host of hanged clients. 

We went to Gerrard-street, all three together, in a 
hackney coach : and as soon as we got there, dinner 
was served. Although I should not have thought of 
making, in that place, the most distant reference by so 
much as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, 
yet I should have had no objection to catching his eye 
now and then in a friendly way. But it was not to be 
done. He turned his eyes on Mr, Jaggers whenever he 
raised them from the table, and was as dry and distant 
to me as if there were twin Wemmicks and this was the 
wrong one. 

"Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. 
Pip, Wemmick ? " Mr. Jaggers asked, soon after we 
began dinner. 

"No, sir," returned Wemmick; "it was going by 
post, when you brought Mr. Pip into the office. Here it 
is." He handed it to his principal, instead of to me. 

" It's a note of two lines, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, 
handing it on, "sent up to me by Miss Havisham, on 
account of her not being sure of your address. She tells 
me that she wants to see you on a little matter of busi- 
ness you mentioned to her. You'll go down ? " 

"Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which 
was exactly in those terms. 

" When do you think of going down?" 

" I have an impending engagement," said I, glanc- 
ing at Wemmick, who was putting fish into the post- 
office, "that renders me rather uncertain of my time. 
At once, I think." 

" If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once," said 
Wemmick to Mr. Jaggers, " he needn't write an answer, 
you know." 

Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to 
delay, I settled that I would go to-morrow, and said 



830 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine and looked with 
a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me. 

" So, Pip ! Our friend the Spider/' said Mr. Jaggers, 
" has played his cards. He has won the pool." 

It was as much as I could do to assent. 

' ' Hah ! He is a promising fellow — in his way — but he 
may not have it all his own way. The stronger will 
win in the end, but the stronger has to be found out 
first. If he should turn to, and beat her " 

"Surely," I interrupted with a burning face and 
heart, " you do not seriously think that he is scoundrel 
enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?" 

"I didn't say so, Pip. lam putting a case. If he 
should turn to and beat her, he may possibly get the 
strength on his side : if it should be a question of in- 
tellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance work 
to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn 
out in such circumstances, because it's a toss-up be- 
tween two results." 

"May I ask what they are?" 

" A fellow like our friend the Spider," answered Mr. 
Jaggers, " either beats, or cringes. He may cringe and 
growl, or cringe and not growl ; but he either beats or 
cringes. Ask Wemmick his opirfion." 

"Either beats or cringes," said Wemmick, not at all 
addressing himself to me. 

" So, here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle," said Mr. 
Jaggers, taking a decanter of choicer wine from his 
dumb-waiter, and filling for each of us and for himself, 
"and may the question of supremacy be settled to the 
lady's satisfaction ! To the satisfaction of the lady and 
the gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, 
Molly, Molly, how slow you are to-day!" 

She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting 
a dish upon the table. As she withdrew her hands from 
it, she fell back a step or two, nervously muttering some 
excuse. And a certain action of her fingers as she 
spoke arrested my attention. 

" What's the matter ? " said Mr. Jaggers. 

"Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of," 
said I, " was rather painful tome." 

The action of her fingers was like the action of knit- 
ting. She stood looking at her master, not understand- 
ing whether she was free to go, or whether he had more 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 381 

to say to her and would call her back if she did go. Her 
look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such 
eyes and such hands, on a memorable occasion lately. 

He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. 
But she remained before me, as plainly as if she were 
still there. I looked at those hands, I looked at those 
eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I compared 
them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I' 
knew of, and with what those might be after twenty 
years of a brutal husband and a stormy life. I looked 
again at those hands and eyes of the housekeeper, and 
thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over 
me when I last walked — not alone — in the ruined garden, 
and through the deserted brewery. I thought how the 
same feeling had come back when I saw a face looking 
at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach win- 
dow; and how it had come back again and had flashed 
about me like Lightning, when I had passed in a car- 
riage — not alone — through a sudden glare of light in a 
dark street. I thought how one link of association had 
helped that identification in the theatre, and how such 
a link, wanting before, had been riveted for me now, 
when I had passed by a chance swift from Estella's 
name to the fingers with their knitting action, and the 
attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this 
woman was Estella's mother. 

Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not 
likely to have missed the sentiments I had been at no 
pains to conceal. He nodded when I said the subject 
was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round 
the wine again, and went on with his dinner. 

Only twice more did the housekeeper re-appear, and 
then her stay in the room was very short, and Mr. Jag- 
gers was sharp with her. But her hands were Estella's 
hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, and if she had 
reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither 
more sure nor less sure that my conviction was the 
truth. 

It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine 
when it came round, quite as a matter of business — just 
as he might have drawn his salary when that came 
round — and with his eyes on his chief, sat in a state of 
perpetual readiness for cross-examination. As to the 
quantity of wine, his post-office was as indifferent and 



382 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

ready as any other post-office for its quantity of letters. 
From my point of view, he was the wrong twin all the 
time, and only externally like the Wemmick of Wal- 
worth. 

We took our leave early, and left together. Even 
when we were groping among Mr. Jaggers's stock of 
boots for our hats, I felt that the right twin was on his 
way back; and we had not gone half a dozen yards 
down Gerrard-street in the Walworth direction before 
I found that I was walking arm-in-arm with the right 
twin, and that the wrong twin had evaporated into the 
evening air. 

"Well!" said Wemmick, "that's over! He's a 
wonderful man, without his living likeness; but I feel 
that I have to screw myself up when I dine with him — 
and I dine more comfortably unscrewed." 

I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and 
told him so. 

" Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself," he 
answered. " I know that what is said between you and 
me, goes no further." 

I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's 
adopted daughter, Mrs. Bentley Drummle? He said no. 
To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke of the Aged, 
and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I men- 
tioned Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow 
his nose, with a roll of the head and a flourish not quite 
free from latent boastfulness. 

" Wemmick," said I," " do you remember telling me 
before I first went to Mr. Jaggers's private house, to 
notice that housekeeper?" 

" Did I ?" he replied. "Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce 
take me," he added sullenly, " I know I did. I find I 
am not quite unscrewed yet." 

"A wild beast tamed, you called her." 

"And what did you call her?" 

"The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, 
Wemmick? " 

"That's his secret. She has been with him many a 
long year." 

" I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a par- 
ticular interest in being acquainted with it. You know 
that what is said between you and me, goes no 
further." 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 383 

" Well!" Wemmick replied, " I don't know her story 
— that is, I don't know all of it. But what I do know, 
I'll tell you. We are in our private and personal 
capacities, of course."' 

" Of course." . 

"A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried 
at the Old Bailey for murder, and was acquitted. She 
was a very handsome young woman, and I believe had 
some gipsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough 
when it was up, as you may suppose." 

" But she was acquitted." 

" Mr. Jaggers was for her," pursued Wemmick, with 
a look full of meaning," and worked the case in a way 
quite astonishing. It was a desperate case, and it w^as 
comparatively early days with him then, and he worked 
it to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be said 
to have made him. He worked it himself at the police- 
office, day after day for many days, contending against 
even a committal; and at the trial where he couldn't 
work it himself, sat under counsel, and — every one 
knew — put in all the salt and pepper. The murdered 
person was a woman; a woman, a good ten years older, 
very much larger, and very much stronger. It was a 
case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and 
this woman in Gerrard-street here, had been married 
very young, over the broomstick (as we say), to a 
tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jeal- 
ousy. The murdered woman — more a match for the 
man, certainly, in point of years — was found dead in a 
barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a violent 
struggle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched 
and torn, and had been held by the throat at last and 
choked. Now, there was no reasonable evidence to 
implicate any person but this woman, and, on the 
improbabilities of her having been able to do it, Mr. 
Jaggers principally rested his case. You may be sure," 
said Wemmick, touching me on the sleeve, "that he 
never dwelt upon the strength of her hands then, though 
he sometimes does now." 

I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, 
that day of the dinner party. 

"Well, sir!" Wemmick went on; " it happened — hap- 
pened, don't you see? — that this woman was so very 
artfully dressed from the time of her apprehension, that 



384 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

she looked much slighter than she really was; in par- 
ticular, her sleeves are always remembered to have 
been so skilfully contrived that her arms had quite a 
delicate look. She had only a bruise or two about her 
— nothing for a tramp — but the backs of her hands 
were lacerated, and the question was, was it with 
finger-nails? Now, Mr. Jaggers showed that she had 
struggled through a great lot of brambles which were 
not as high as her face; but which she could not have 
got through and kept her hands out of; and bits of those 
brambles were actually found in her skin and put in 
evidence, as well as the fact that the brambles in ques- 
tion were found on examination to have been broken 
through, and to have little shreds of her dress and little 
spots of blood upon them here and there. But the 
boldest point he made, was this. It was attempted to 
be set up in proof of her jealousy, that she was under 
strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the 
murder, frantically destroyed her child by this man — 
some three years old — to revenge herself upon him. Mr. 
Jaggers worked that, in this way. ' We say these are 
not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and 
we show you the brambles. You say they are marks 
of finger-nails, and you set up the hypothesis that she 
destroyed her child. You must accept all consequences 
of that hypothesis. For anything we know, she may 
have destroyed her child, and the child in clinging to 
her may have scratched her hands. "What then? You 
are not trying her for the murder of her child; why 
don't you? As to this case, if you will have scratches, 
we say that, for anything we know, you may have 
accounted for them, assuming for the sake of argument 
that you have not invented them? ' To sum up, sir," said 
Wemmick, "Mr. Jaggers was altogether too many for the 
Jury, and they gave in." 

" Has she been in his service ever since? " 

" Yes; but not only that," said Wemmick, " she went 
into his service immediately after her acquittal, tamed 
as she is now. She has since been taught one thing and 
another in the way of her duties, but she was tamed 
from the beginning." 

" Do you remember the sex of the child?" 

" Said to have been a girl." 

" You have nothing more to say to me to-night? " 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 385 

" Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. 
Nothing. v 

We exchanged a cordial Good Night, and I went home, 
with new matter for my thoughts, though with no relief 
from the old. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 



PUTTING Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that 
it might serve as my credentials for so soon reap- 
pearing at Satis House, in case her waywardness should 
lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went 
down again by the coach next day. But, I alighted at 
the Halfway House, and breakfasted there, and walked 
the rest of the distance; for, I sought to get into the 
town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it 
in the same manner. 

The best light of the day was gone when I passed 
along the quiet echoing courts behind the High-street. 
The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once had 
their refectories and gardens, and where the strong 
walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds 
and stables, were almost as silent as the old monks in 
their graves. The cathedral chimes had at once a sad- 
der and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on 
avoiding observation, than they had ever had before; so, 
the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like 
funeral music; and the rooks, as they hovered about the 
grey tower and swung in the bare high trees of the pri- 
ory-garden, seemed to call to me that the place was 
changed, and that Estella was gone out of it for ever. 

An elderly woman whom I had seen before as one of 
the servants who lived in the supplementary house 
across the back court-yard, opened the gate. The lighted 
candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, and 
I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss 
Havisham was not in her own room, but was in the 
larger room across the landing. Looking in at the door, 
after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth 
in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contem- 
plation of, the ashy fire. 

Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood, touch- 
ing the old chimney-piece, where she could see me when 
vol. I. 25 



380 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

she raised her eyes. There was an air of utter lone- 
liness upon her, that would have moved me to pity 
though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than 
I could charge her with. As I stood compassionating 
her, and thinking how in the progress of time I too had 
come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of that house, 
her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low 
voice, "Is it real!" 

"It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yester- 
day, and I have lost no time." 

" Thank you. Thank you." 

As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the 
hearth and sat down, I remarked a new expression on 
her face, as if she were afraid of me. 

"I want," she said, "to pursue that subject you men- 
tioned to me when you were last here, and to show you 
that I am not all stone. But perhaps you can never be- 
lieve, now, that there is anything human in my heart?" 

When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out 
her tremulous right hand, as though she was going to 
touch me; but she recalled it again before I understood 
the action, or knew how to receive it. 

"You said, speaking for your friend, that you could 
tell me how to do something useful and good. Some- 
thing that you would like done, is it not?" 

" Something that I would like done very very much." 

"What is it?" 

I began explaining to her that secret history of the 
partnership. I had not got far into it, when I judged 
from her looks that she was thinking in a discursive 
way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to 
be so, for, when I stopped speaking, many moments 
passed before she showed that she was conscious of the 
fact. 

" Do you break off," she asked then, with her former 
air of being afraid of me, "because you hate me too 
much to bear to speak to me?" 

"No, no," I answered, "how can you think so, Miss 
Havisham! I stopped because I thought you were not 
following what I said." 

"Perhaps I was not," she answered, putting a hand 
to her head. "Begin again, and let me look at some- 
thing else. Stay! Now tell ma" 

She set her hand upon her stick, in the resolute way 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 38? 

that sometimes was habitual to her, and looked at ihe 
fire with a strong expression of forcing herself to attend. 
I went on with my explanation, and told her how I had 
hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, 
but how in this I was disappointed. That part of the 
subject (I reminded her) involved matters which could 
form no part of my explanation, for they were the 
weighty secrets of another. 

"So!" said she, assenting with her head, but not 
looking at me. " And how much money is wanting to 
complete thepurchace?" 

I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large 
sum. "Nine hundred pounds." 

" If I give you the money for this purpose, will you 
keep my secret as you have kept vour own ? " 

"Quite as faithfully." 

"And your mind will be more at rest?" 

"Much more at rest." 

"Are you very unhappy now?" 

She asked this question, still without looking at me, 
but in an unwonted tone of sympathy. I could not re- 
ply at the moment, for my voice failed me. She put her 
left arm across^he head of her stick, and softly laid her 
forehead on it. 

"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have 
other causes of disquiet than any you know of. They 
are the secrets I have mentioned." 

After a little while, she raised her head, and looked 
at the fire again. 

"'Tis noble in you to tell me that you have other 
causes of unhappiness. Is it true?" 

"Too true." 

"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? 
Regarding that as done, is there nothing I can do for 
you yourself?" 

"Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank 
you even more for the tone of the question. But, there 
is nothing." 

She presently rose from her seat, and looked about 
the blighted room for the means of writing. There 
were none there, and she took from her pocket a yel- 
low set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and 
wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished 
gold that hung from her neck. 



388 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?" 

" Quite. I dined with him yesterday." 

" This is an authority to him to pay you that money, 
to lay out at your irresponsible discretion for your friend. 
I keep no money here; but if you would rather Mr. 
Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it to 
you." 

" Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least ob- 
jection to receiving it from him." 

She read me what she had written, and it was direct 
and clear, and evidently intended to absolve me from 
any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the money. 
I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, 
and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which 
the pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this 
she did, without looking at me. 

" My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write 
under my name, 'I forgive her/ though ever so long 
after my broken heart is dust — pray do it!" 

" O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now. There 
have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind 
and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction 
far too much, to be bitter with you." 

She turned her face to me for the first time since she 
had averted it, and to my amazement, I may even add 
to my terror, dropped on her knees at my feet; with her 
folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when 
her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they 
must often have been raised to Heaven from her mother's 
side. 

To see her with her white hair and her worn face, 
kneeling at my feet, gave me a shock through all my 
frame. I entreated her to rise, and got my arms about 
her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of 
mine which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her 
head over it and wept. I had never seen her shed a 
tear before, and, in the hope that the relief might do 
her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was 
not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground. 

"O!" she cried, despairingly. " What have I done! 
What have I done!" 

"If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done 
to injure me, let me answer. Very little. I should have 
loved her under any circumstances. — Is she married?' 



I 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 389 

"Yes." 

It was a needless question, for a new desolation in 
the desolate house had told me so. 

"What have I done! What have I done!" She wrung 
her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to 
this cry over and over again. "What have I done! " 

I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. 
That she had done a grievous thing in taking an im- 
pressionable child to mould into the form that her wild 
resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, 
found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in 
shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely 
more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from 
a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her 
mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all 
minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed 
order of their Maker; I knew equally well. And could 
I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punish- 
ment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for 
this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of 
sorrow which had become a master mania, like the 
vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity 
of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that 
have been curses in this world? 

"Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I 
saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what* I 
once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. 
What have I done! What have I done!" And so again, 
twenty, fifty times over, What had she done! 

"Miss Havisham," I said, when her cry had died 
away, " you may dismiss me from your mind and con- 
science. But Estella is a different case, and if you can 
ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in 
keeping a part of her right nature away from her, it 
will be better to do that, than to bemoan the past through 
a hundred years." 

"Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip — my Dear!" There 
was an earnest womanly compassion for me in her new 
affection. "My Dear! Believe this: when she first 
came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my 
own. At first I meant no more." 

" Well well! " said I. " I hope so." 

"But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, 
I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with 



390 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure 
of myself always before her, a warning to back and 
point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in 
its place." 

" Better," I could not help saying, "to have left her 
a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken." 

With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me 
for a while, and then burst out again, What had she 
done! 

" If you knew all my story," she pleaded, " you would 
have some compassion for me and a better understand- 
ing of me." 

"Miss Havisham," I answered, as delicately as I 
could, "I believe I may say that I do know your story, and 
have known it ever since I first left this neighbourhood. 
It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I 
hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has 
passed between us give me any excuse for asking you 
li question relative to Estella? Not as she is, but as she 
was when she first came here ? " 

She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the 
ragged chair, and her head leaning on them. She looked 
full at me when I said this, and replied, "Go on." 

" Whose child was Estella?" 

She shook her head. 
• "You don't know?" 

She shook her head again. 

" But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here? " 

"Brought her here." 

" Will you tell me how that came about?" 

She answered in a low whisper and with caution: "I 
had been shut up in these rooms a long time (I don't 
know how long; you know what time the clocks keep 
here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to 
rear and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen 
him when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me; 
having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the 
world parted. He told me that he would look about him 
for such an orphan child. One night he brought her 
here asleep, and I called her Estella." 

" Might I ask her age then? " 

" Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that 
she was left an orphan and I adopted her." 

So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 391 

that I wanted no evidence to establish the fact in my 
mind. But, to any mind, I thought, the connexion here 
was clear and straight. 

What more could I hope to do by prolonging the in- 
terview? I had succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss 
Havisham had told me all she knew of Estella, I had 
said and done what I could to ease her mind. No 
matter with what other words we parted; we parted. 

Twilight was closing in when I went down-stairs into 
the natural air. I called to the woman who had opened 
the gate when I entered, that I would not trouble her 
just yet, but would walk round the place before 
leaving. For, I had a presentiment that I should never 
be there again, and I felt that the dying light was 
suited to my last view of it. 

By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long 
ago, and on which the rain of years had fallen since, 
rotting them in many places, and leaving miniature 
swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on 
end, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all 
round it; round by the corner where Herbert and I had 
fought our battle; round by the paths where Estella 
and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all! 

Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the 
rusty latch of a little door at the garden end of it, and 
walked through. I was going out at the opposite door — 
not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started 
and swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the 
threshold was encumbered with a growth of fungus— 
when I turned my head to look back. A childish 
association revived with wonderful force in the 
moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw 
Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was 
the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering 
from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy — though 
to be sure I was there in an instant. 

The mournfulness of the place and time, and the 
great terror of this illusion, though it was but momen- 
tary, caused me to feel an indescribable awe as I came 
out between the open wooden gates where I had once 
wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. 
Passing on into the front courtyard, I hesitated whether 
to call the woman to let me out at the locked gate of 
which she had the key, or first to go up-stairs and 



392 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well 
as I had left her. I took the latter course and 
went in. 

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I 
saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth 
close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the 
moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly 
away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the 
same moment, I saw her running at me, shrieking, with 
a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at 
least as many feet above her head as she was high. 

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm 
another thick coat. That I got them off, closed with 
her, threw her down, and got them over her; that I 
dragged the great cloth from the table for the same 
purpose, and with it dragged down the heap of rotten- 
ness in the midst, and all the ugly things that sheltered 
there; that we were on the ground struggling like des- 
perate enemies, and that the closer I covered her, the 
more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself; that 
this occurred I knew through the result, but not through 
anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew 
nothing until I knew that we were on the floor by the 
great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were 
floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had 
been her faded bridal dress. 

Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and 
spiders running away over the floor, and the servants 
coming in with breathless cries at the door. I still 
held her forcibly down with all my strength, like a 

Erisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even 
new who she was, or why we had struggled, or 
that she had been in flames, or that the flames 
were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had 
been her garments, no longer alight but falling in a~ 
black shower around us. 

She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her 
moved, or even touched. Assistance was sent for, and 
I held her until it came, as if I unreasonably fancied 
(I think I did) that if I let her go, the fire would break 
out again and consume her. When I got up, on the 
surgeon's coming to her with other aid, I was astonished 
to see that both my hands were burnt; for, I had no 
knowledge of it through the sense of feeling. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 393 

On examination it was pronounced that she had re- 
ceived serious hurts, but that they of themselves were 
far from hopeless; tne decngm lay mainly in the nerv- 
ous shock, By the surgeon's directions, her bed was 
carried into that room and laid upon the great table: 
which happened to be well suited to the dressing of 
her injuries. When I saw her again, an hour after- 
wards, she lay indeed where I had seen her strike 
her stick, and had heard her say she would lie one 
day. 

Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they 
told me, she still had something of her old ghastly 
bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to the 
throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a 
white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of 
something that had been and was changed was still 
upon her. 

I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella 
was in Paris, and I got a promise from the surgeon 
that he would write by the next post. Miss Havisham's 
family I took upon myself; intending to communicate 
with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as 
he liked about informing the rest. This I did next 
day, through Herbert, as soon as I returned to town. 

There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke 
collectedly of what had happened, though with a cer- 
tain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she began to 
wander in her speech, and after that it gradually set in 
that she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, 
"What have I done!" And then, "When she first 
came, I meant to save her from misery like mine." And 
then, "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I 
forgive her!' She never changed the order of those 
three sentences, but she sometimes left out a word in 
one or other of them; never putting in another word, 
but always leaving a blank and going on to the next 
word. 

As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer 
home, that pressing reason for anxiety and fear which 
even her wanderings could not drive out of my mind, I 
decided in the course of the night that I would return 
by the early morning coach : walking on a mile or so, 
and being taken up clear of the town. At about six 
o'clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her and 



394 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

touched her lips with mine, just as they said, not stop- 
ping for being touched, "Take the pencil and write 
under my name, ' I for^i-ro kcr, J " 



CHAPTER L. 

MY hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the 
night, and again in the morning. My left arm 
was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less severely 
as high as the shoulder; it was very painful, but the 
flames had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it 
was no worse. My right hand was not so badly burnt 
but that I could move the fingers. It was bandaged, of 
course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand 
and arm; those I carried in a sling; and I could only 
wear my coat like a cloak, loose over my shoulders and 
fastened at the neck. My hair had been caught by the 
fire, but not my head or face. 

When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and 
had seen his father, he came back to me at our cham- 
bers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He was 
the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the 
bandages, and steeped them in the cooling liquid that 
was kept ready, and put them on again, with a patient 
tenderness that I was deeply grateful for. 

At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully 
difficult, I might say impossible, to get rid of the im- 
pression of the glare of the flames, their hurry and 
noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I dozed for a 
minute, I was awakened by Miss Havisham's cries, and 
by her running at me with all that height of fire above 
her head. This pain of the mind was much harder to 
strive against than any bodily pain I suffered; and 
Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my atten- 
tion engaged. 

Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought 
of it. That was made apparent by our avoidance of 
the subject, and by our agreeing — without agreement — 
to make my recovery of the use of my hands, a question 
of so many hours, not of so many weeks. 

My first question when I saw Herbert had been, of 
course, whether all was well down the river? As he 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 395 

replied in the affirmative, with perfect confidence and 
cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the 
day was wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed 
the bandages, more by the light of the fire than by the 
outer light, he went back to it spontaneously. 

"I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good 
hours." 

"Where was Clara?" 

" Dear little thing! " said Herbert. " She was up and 
down with Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was per- 
petually pegging at the floor, the moment she left his 
sight. I doubt if he can hold out long though. What 
with rum and pepper — and pepper and rum — I should 
think his pegging must be nearly over." 

" And then you will be married, Herbert?" 

" How can I take care of the dear child otherwise? — 
Lay your arm out upon the back of the sofa, my dear 
boy, and I'll sit down here, and get the bandage off so 
gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I 
was speaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he 
improves*" 

" I said to you I thought he was softened when I last 
saw him." 

"So you did. And so he is. He was very communi- 
cative last night, and told me more of his life. You re- 
member his breaking off here about some woman that 
he had had great trouble with. — Did I hurt you?" 

I had started, but not under his touch. His words 
had given me a start. 

" I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it 
now you speak of it." 

"Well! He went into that part of his life, and a 
dark wild part it is. Shall I tell you? Or would it 
worry tou just now?" 

" Tell me by all means.- Every word." 

Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if 
my reply had been rather more hurried or more eager 
than be could quite account for. " Your head is cool? " 
he said, touching it. 

"Qrite," said I. "Tell me what Provis said, my 
dear Herbert." 

"It seems," said Herbert, " — there's a bandage off 
most charmingly, and now comes the cool one — makes 
you sirink at first, my poor dear fellow, don't it? but it 



396 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

will be comfortable presently — it seems that the woman 
was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a 
revengeful woman; revengeful, Handel, to the last 
degree." 

" To what last degree? " 

"Murder. — Does it strike too cold on that sensitive 
place?" 

"I don't feel it. How did she murder? Whom did 
she murder?" 

" Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terri- 
ble a name," said Herbert, "but she was tried for it, 
and Mr. Jaggers defended her, and the reputation of 
that defence first made his name known to Provis. It 
was another and a stronger woman who was the victim, 
and there had been a struggle — in a barn. Who began 
it, or how fair it was, or how unfair, may be doubtful; 
but how it ended, is certainly not doubtful, for the vic- 
tim was found throttled." 

" Was the woman brought in guilty?" 

"No; she was acquitted. — My poor Handel, I hurt 
you!" 

" It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What 
else?" 

" This acquitted young woman and Proxis had a 
little child; a little child of whom Provis was exceed- 
ingly fond. On the evening of the very night when the 
object of her jealousy was strangled "as I tell you, the 
young woman presented herself before Provis ^or one 
moment, and swore that she would destroy thfe child 
(which was in her possession), and he should never see 
it again; then, she vanished. — There's the woijst arm 
comfortably in the sling once more, and now tliere re- 
mains but the right hand, which is a far easier job. I 
can do it better by this light than by a stronger, for my 
hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor blistered 
patches too distinctly. — You don't think your breath- 
ing is affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe 
quickly." 

"Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keip her 
oath?" 

"There comes the darkest part of Provis's life. She 
did." - 

"That is, he says she did." 

" Why, of 'course, my dear boy," returned Herbert, in 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 397 

a tone of surprise, and again bending forward to get a 
nearer look at me. " He says it all. I have no other 
information." 

'•'No, to be sure." 

" Now, whether," pursued Herbert, " he had used the 
child's mother ill, or whether he had used the child's 
mother well, Provis doesn't say; but, she had shared 
some four or five years of the wretched life he described 
to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for 
her, and forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing 
he should be called upon to depose about this destroyed 
child, and so be the cause of her death, he hid himself 
(much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, 
as he says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was 
only vaguely talked of as a certain man called Abel, 
out of whom the jealousy arose. After the acquittal 
she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the 
child's mother." 

" I want to ask " 

"A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That 
evil genius, Compeyson, the worst of scoundrels among 
many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping out of the way 
at that time, and of his reasons for doing so, of course 
afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a 
means of keeping him poorer, and working him harder. 
It was clear last night that this barbed the point of 
Pro vis's animosity." 

"I want to know," said I, " and particularly, Herbert, 
whether he told you when this happened?" " 

" Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said 
as to that. His expression was ' a round score o' year 
ago, xnd a'most directly after I took up wi' Compeyson.' 
How old were you when you came upon him in the little 
churchyard?" 

" I think in my seventh year." 

" A.y. It had happened some three or four years 
then, he said, and you brought into his mind the little 
girl so tragically lost, who would have been about 
youj age." 

" Herbert," said I, after a short silence, in a hurried 
waj, " can you see me best by the light of the window, 
or tie light of the fire?" 

"By the firelight," answered Herbert, coming close 
agan. 



398 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"Look at me." 

" I do look at you, my dear boy." 

"Touch me." 

" I do touch you, my dear boy." 

"You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that 
imy head is much disordered by the accident of last 
'night?" 

" N-no, my dear boy," said Herbert, after taking time 
to examine me. "You are rather excited, but you are 
quite yourself." 

" I know I am quite myself. And the man we have 
in hiding down the river, is Estella's Father." 

I 



CHAPTER LI. 



"TTTHAT purpose I had in view when I was hot on 
VV tracing out and proving Estella's parentage, I 
cannot say. It will presently be seen that the question 
was not before me in a distinct shape, until it vas put 
before me by a wiser head than my own. 

But, when Herbert and I had held our momentous 
conversation, I was seized with a feverish cor viction 
that I ought to hunt the matter down — that I oi^ht not 
to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and 
come at the bare truth. I really do not know vhether 
I felt that I did this for Estella's sake, or whether I was 
glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was 
so much concerned, some rays of the romantic interest 
that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the fetter 
possibility may be nearer to the truth. 

Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going 
out to Gerrard-street that night. Herbert's representa- 
tions that if I did, I should probably be laid up and 
stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would de- 
pend upon me, alone restrained my impatience. 0^ the 
understanding, again and again reiterated, that qpme 
what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers to-morrow, J at 
length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts 
looked after, and to stay at home. Early next moriiing 
we went out together, and at the corner of Giltsiur- 
street by Smithfield, I left Herbert to go his way ^ito 
the City, and. took my way to Little Britain. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 399 

There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers 
and Mr. Wemmick went over the office accounts, and 
checked off the vouchers, and put all things straight. 
On these occasions Wemmick took his books and papers 
into Mr. Jaggers's room, and one of the up-stairs clerks 
came down into the outer office. Finding such clerk on 
Wemmick's post that morning, I knew what was going 
on: tut I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wem- 
mick together, as Wemmick would then hear for him- 
self that I said nothing to compromise him. 

My appearance with my arm bandaged and my coat 
loose o^er my shoulders, favoured my object. Although 
I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief account of the accident 
as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him 
all the details now; and the specialty of the occasion 
caused our talk to be less dry and hard, and less strictly 
regulated by the rules of evidence, than it had been 
before. While I described the disaster, Mr. Jaggers 
stood, according to his wont, before the fire. Wem- 
mick leaned back in his chair, staring at me, with his 
hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his pen put 
horizontally into the post. The two brutal casts, always 
insepaiable in my mind from the official proceedings, 
seemed to be congestively considering whether they 
didn't anell fire at the present moment. 

My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, 
I then produced Miss Havisham's authority to receive 
the niie hundred pounds for Herbert. Mr. Jaggers's 
eyes retired a little deeper into his head when I handed 
him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to 
Wenmick, with instructions to draw the cheque for his 
signiture. While that was in course of being done, I 
looted on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr. Jaggers, 
poisng and swaying himself on his well-polished boots, 
looked on at me. "I am sorry, Pip," said he, as I put 
the 3heque in my pocket, when he had signed it, " that 
we lo nothing for you." 

"Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me," I re- 
turied, "whether she could do anything for me, and I 
toll her, No." 

6 Everybody should know his own business," said 
Mi Jaggers. And I saw Wemmick's lips form the 
wads "portable property." 

'I should not have told her No, if I had been you," 



400 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

said Mr. Jaggers; "but every man ought to know his 
own business best." 

"Every man's business/' said Wemmick, rather re- 
proachfully towards me, is "portable propertj^." 

As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the 
theme I had at heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers : 

" I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, 
sir. I asked her to give me some information relative 
to her adopted daughter, and she gave me all she 
possessed." 

"Did she?" said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to 
look at his boots and then straightening himself. 
" Hah ! I don't think I should have done so, iE I had 
been Miss Havisham. But she ought to know her own 
business best." 

" I know more of the history of Miss Havfeham's 
adopted child, than Miss Havisham herself does sir. I 
know her mother." 

Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated 
" Mother ? " 

" I have seen her mother within these three days." 

"Yes ?" said Mr. Jaggers. 

" And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still 
more recently." 

" Yes ?" said Mr. Jaggers. 

" Perhaps I know more of Estella's history, than even 
you do," said I. "I know her father, too." 

A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in h;s man- 
ner — he was too self-possessed to change his manner, 
but he could not help it being brought to an indefin- 
ably attentive stop — assured me that he did not mow 
who her father was. This I had strongly suspected 
from Pro vis's account (as Herbert had repeated t) of 
his having kept himself dark; which I pieced on to the 
fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers's client until 
some four years later, and when he could ha^e no 
reason for claiming his identity. But, I could n)t be 
sure of this unconsciousness on Mr. Jaggers's Jpart 
before, though I was quite sure of it now. 

"So ! # You know the young lady's father, Pb ?" 
said Mr.* Jaggers. 

"Yes," I replied, "and his name is Provis — fjom 
/New South Wales." 

Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those wo Ids. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS, 401 

It was the slightest start that could escape a man, the 
most carefully repressed and the sooner checked, 
but he did start, though he made it a part of the action 
of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wem- 
mick received the announcement I am unable to say, 
for I was afraid to look at him just then, lest Mr. Jag- 
gers's sharpness should detect that there had been some 
communication unknown to him between us. 

"And on what evidence, Pip?" asked Mr. Jaggers, 
very coolly, as he paused with his handkerchief half 
way to his nose, " does Pro vis make this claim? " 

" He does not make it," said I, " and has never made 
it, and has no knowledge or belief that his daughter is 
in existence." 

" For once the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. 
My reply was so unexpected that Mr. Jaggers put the 
handkerchief back into his pocket without completing 
the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked with 
stern attention at me, though with an immovable face. 

Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with 
the one reservation that I left him to infer that I knew 
from Miss Havisham what I in fact knew from Wem- 
mick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor, did 
I look towards Wemmick until I had finished all I 
had to tell, and had been for sometime silently meeting 
Mr. Jaggers' s look. When I did at last turn my eyes 
in Wemmick's direction, I found that he had unposted 
his pen, and was intent upon the table before him. 

"Hah!" said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved 
toward the papers on the table. " — What item was it 
you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in ? " 

But I could not submit to be thrown off in that 
way, and I made a passionate, almost an indignant 
appeal to him to be more frank and manly with me. 
I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had 
lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the 
discovery I had made : and I hinted at the danger 
that weighed upon my spirits. I represented myself as 
being surely worthy of some little confidence from him, 
in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I 
said that I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mis- 
trust him, but I wanted assurance of the truth from 
him. And if he asked me why I wanted it and why I 
thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little 
vol. i. 26 „ 



402 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

as he cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved 
Estella dearly and long, and that, although I had 
lost her and must live a bereaved life, whatever con- 
cerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than 
anything else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jag- 
gers stood quite still and silent, and apparently quite 
obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to Wemmick, 
and said, " Wemmick, I know you to be a man with 
a gentle heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and 
your old father, and all the innocent cheerful play- 
ful ways with which you refresh your business life. 
And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. 
Jaggers, and to represent to him that, all circum- 
stances considered, he ought to be more open 
with me ! " 

I have never seen two men look more oddly at one 
another than Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick did after this 
apostrophe. At first, a misgiving crossed me that 
Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his em- 
ployment; but, it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax 
into something like a smile, and Wemmick become 
bolder. 

"What's all this? " said Mr. Jaggers. " You with an 
old father, and you with pleasant and playful ways ? " 

" Well! " returned Wemmick. " If I don't bring 'em 
here, what does it matter?" 

" Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my 
arm, and smiling openly, "this man must be the most 
cunning impostor in all London." 

" Not a bit of it," returned Wemmick, growing bolder 
and bolder. " I think you're another." 

Again they exchanged their former old looks, each 
apparently still distrustful that the other was taking 
him in. 

" You with a pleasant home? " said Mr. Jaggers. 

" Since it don't interfere with business," returned 
Wemmick, "let it be so. Now, I look at you, sir, I 
shouldn't wonder if you might be planning and con- 
triving to have a pleasant home of your own, one of 
these days, when you're tired of all this work." 

Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or 
three times, and actually drew a sigh. " Pip/' said he, 
"we won't talk about 'poor dreams;' you know more 
about such things than I, having much fresher experi- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 403 

ence of that kind. But now, about this other matter. 
I'll put a case to you. Mind I admit nothing." 

He waited for me to declare that I quite understood 
that he expressly said that he admitted nothing. 

"Now, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, "put this case. Put 
the case that a woman, under such circumstances as 
you have mentioned held her child concealed, and was 
obliged to communicate the fact to her legal adviser, 
on his representing to her that he must know, with an 
eye to the latitude of his defence, how the fact stood 
about that child. Put the case that at the same time 
he held a trust to find a child for an eccentric rich lady 
to adopt and bring up." 

" I follow you, sir." 

"Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, 
and that all he saw of children, was, their being gen- 
erated in great numbers for certain destruction. Put 
the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at a 
criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put 
the case that he habitually knew of their being im- 
prisoned, whipped, transported, neglected, cast out, 
qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing up 
to be hanged. Put the oase that pretty nigh all the 
children he saw in his daily business life, he had reason 
to look upon as so much spawn, to develop into the fish 
that were to come to his net — to be prosecuted, defended, 
foresworn made orphans, be-devilled somehow." 

" I follow you, sir." . 

" Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little 
child out of the heap who could be saved: whom the 
father believed dead, and dared make no stir about; 
as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this 
power: ' I know what you did, and how you did it. You 
came so and so, you did such and such things to divert 
suspicion. I have tracked you through it all, and I tell 
it you all. Part with the child, unless it should be neces- 
sary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall* be pro- 
duced. Give the child into my hands, and I will do my 
best to bring you off. If you are saved, your child will 
be saved too; if you are lost your child is still saved.' 
Put the case that this was done, and that the woman 
was cleared." 

"I understand you perfectly." 

"But that I make no admissions ?" 



404 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" That you make no admissions." And Wemmick re- 
peated, " No admissions." 

"Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of 
death had a little shaken the woman's intellects, and 
that when she was set at liberty, she was scared out of 
the ways of the world and went to him to be sheltered. 
Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down 
the old wild violent nature whenever he saw an inkling 
of its breaking out, by asserting his power over her in 
the old way. Do you comprehend the imaginary case? ' 

"Quite." 

" Put the case that the child grew up, and was mar- 
ried for money. That the mother was still living. That 
the father was still living. That the mother and father 
unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many 
miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That 
the secret was still a secret, except that you had got wind 
of it. Put that last case to yourself very carefully." 

"I do." 

" I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully." 

And Wemmick said, "I do." 

" For whose sake would you reveal the secret ? For 
the father's ? I think he would not be much the better 
for the mother. For the mother's ? I think if she had 
done such a deed she would be safer where she was. 
For the daughter's ? I think it would hardly serve her, 
to establish her parentage for the information of her 
husband, and to drag her back to disgrace, after an 
escape of twenty years, pretty secure to last for life. 
But, add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had 
made her the subject of those 'poor dreams' which 
have, at one time or another, been in the heads of more 
men than you think likely, then I tell you that you had 
better — and would much sooner when you had thought 
well of it — chop off that bandaged left hand of yours 
with your bandaged right hand, and then pass the 
chopper* on to Wemmick there, to cut that off, too." 

I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. 
He gravely touched his lips with his forefinger. I did 
the same. Mr. Jaggers did the same. " Now, Wem- 
mick," said the latter then, resuming his usual manner, 
" what item was it you were at, when Mr. Pip came in?" 

Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I 
observed that the odd looks they had cast at one an- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 405 

other were repeated several times: with this difference 
now, that each of them seemed suspicious, not to say 
conscious, of having shown himself in a weak and un- 
professional light to the other. For this reason, I sup- 
pose, they were now inflexible with one another ; Mr. 
Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick ob- 
stinately justifying himself whenever there was the 
smallest point in abeyance for a moment. I had never 
seen them on such ill terms ; for generally they got on 
very well indeed together. 

But, they were both happily relieved by the opportune 
appearance of Mike, the client with the fur cap and the 
habit of wiping his nose on his sleeve, whom I had seen 
on the very first day of my appearance within those 
walls. This individual, who, either in his own person 
or in that of some member of his family, seemed to be 
always in trouble (which in that place meant Newgate), 
called to announce that his eldest daughter was taken 
up on suspicion of shoplifting. As he imparted this 
melancholy circumstance to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers 
standing magisterially before the fire and taking no 
share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to twinkle 
with a tear. 

" What are you about ?" demanded Wemmick, with 
the utmost indignation. " What do you come snivelling 
here for ? " 

"I didn't go to do it, Mr. Wemmick." 

"You did," said Wemmick. " How dare you? You're 
not in a fit state to come here, if you can't come here 
without spluttering like a bad pen. What do you 
mean by it ? " 

" A man can't help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick," 
pleaded Mike. 

" His what ?" demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. 
" Say that again!" 

"Now, look here, my man," said Mr. Jaggers, ad- 
vancing a step, and pointing to the door. " Get out of 
this office. I'll have no feelings here. Get out." 

" It serves you right," said Wemmick. " Get out." 

So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and 
Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick appeared to have re-estab- 
lished their good understanding, and went to work again 
with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had 
just had lunch. 



406 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER LII. 

FROM Little Britain, I went, with my cheque in 
my pocket, to Miss Skiffins's brother, the account- 
ant; and Miss Skiffins's brother, the accountant, going 
straight to Clarriker's and bringing Clarriker to me, I 
had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrange- 
ment. It was the only good thing I had done, and the 
only completed thing I had done, since I was first ap- 
prised of my great expectations. 

Clarriker informed me on that occasion that the 
affairs of the House were steadily progressing, that he 
would now be able to establish a small branch-house in 
the East which was much wanted for the extension of the 
business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capac- 
ity would go out and take charge of it, I found that I 
must have prepared for a separation from my friend, 
even though my own affairs had been more settled. 
And now indeed I felt as if my last anchor were 
loosening its hold, and I should soon be driving with 
the winds and waves. 

But, there was recompense in the joy with which 
Herbert would come home of a night and tell me of 
these changes, little imagining that he told me no news, 
and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting 
Clara Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of 
me going out to join them (with a caravan of camels, I 
believe), and of our all going up the Nile and seeing 
wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part 
in those bright plans, I felt that Herbert's way was 
clearing fast, and that old Bill Barley had but to stick 
to his pepper and rum, and his daughter would soon be 
happily provided for. 

We had now got into the month of March. My left 
arm, though it presented no bad symptoms, took in 
the natural course so long to heal that I was still un- 
able to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably re- 
stored ; — disfigured, but fairly serviceable. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 407 

On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at 
breakfast, I received the following letter from Wem- 
mick by the post: 

" Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say 
Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try 
it. jSTow burn " 

When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in 
the fire — but not before we had both got it by heart — 
we considered what to do. For, of course my being 
disabled could now be no longer kept out of view. 

" I have thought it over, again and again," said Her- 
bert, " and I think I know a better course than taking 
a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A good fellow, a 
skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and honour- 
able." 

I had thought of him more than once. 

" But how much would you tell him, Herbert ?" 

"It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him sup- 
pose it a mere freak, but a secret one, until the morning 
comes : then let him know that there is urgent reason 
for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go with 
him?" 

"No doubt." 

" Where ? " 

It had seemed to me, in the many anxious consider- 
ations I had given the point, almost indifferent what 
port we made for — Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp — the 
place signified little so that he was out of England. 
Any foreign steamer that fell in our way and would 
take us up, would do. I had always proposed to myself 
to get him well down the river in the boat ; certainly 
well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for 
search or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As foreign 
steamers would leave London at about the time of 
high-water, one plan would be to get down the river by 
a previous ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot until 
we could pull off to one. The time when one would be 
due where we lay, wherever that might be, could be 
calculated pretty nearly, if we made inquiries befo:p^ 
hand. / 

Herbert assented to all this, and we went out/imme 
diately after breakfast to pursue our investigations. 



V 



408 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

We found that a steamer for Hamburg was likely to 
suit our purpose best, and we directed our thoughts 
chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other 
foreign steamers would leave London with the same 
tide, and we satisfied ourselves that we knew the 
build and colour of each. We then separated for a few 
hours ; I, to get at once such passports as were neces- 
sary: Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both 
did what we had to do without any hindrance, and 
when we met again at one o'clock reported it done. I, 
for my part, was prepared with passports ; Herbert had 
seen Startop, and he was more than ready to join. 

Those two would pull a pair of oars, we settled and I 
would steer; our charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; 
as speed was not our object, we should make way 
enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come 
home to dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that 
evening; that he should not go there at all, to-morrow 
evening, Tuesday; that he should prepare Pro vis to 
come down to some Stairs hard by the house, on Wed- 
nesday, when he saw us approach, and not sooner; that 
all the arrangements with him should be concluded 
that Monday night ; and that he should be communi- 
cated with no more in any way, until we took him on 
board. 

These precautions well understood by both of us, I 
went home. 

On opening the outer door of our chambers with my 
key, I found a letter in the box, directed to me ; a very 
dirty letter, though not ill-written. It had been deliv- 
ered by hand (of course since I left home), and its con- 
tents were these : 

"If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to- 
morrow night at Nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the 
limekiln, you had better come. If you want information regarding your 
uncle Provis 1 you had much better come and tell no one and lose no 
time. You must come alone. Bring this with you." 

I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt 

aof this strange letter. What to do now, I could not tell, 

Vend the worst was, that I must decide quickly, or I 

1 ^i miss the afternoon coach, which would take me 

d wn K 1 ^ me ^ or t°" n *£ht- To-morrow night I could not 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 409 

think of going, for it would be too close upon the time 
of the flight. And again, for anything I knew, the 
proffered information might have some important 
bearing on the flight itself. 

If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe 
I should still have gone. Having hardly any time for 
consideration — my watch showing me that the coach 
started within half an hour — I resolved to go. I should 
certainly not have gone, but for the reference of my 
Uncle Provis. That, coming on Wemmick's letter and 
the morning's busy preparation, turned the scale. 

It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the 
contents of almost any letter, in a violent hurry, that I 
had to read this mysterious epistle again, twice before 
its injunction to me to be secret got mechanically into 
my mind. Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind 
of way, I left a note in pencil for Herbert, telling him 
that as I should be so soon going away, I knew not for 
how long, I had decided to hurry down and back, to 
ascertain for myself how Miss Havisham was faring. 
I had then barely time to get my great-coat, lock up 
the chambers, and make for the coach-office by the 
short by-ways. If I had taken a hackney-chariot and 
gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim ; 
going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out 
of the yard. I was the only inside passenger, jolting 
away knee -deep in straw when I came to myself. 

For, I really had not been myself since the receipt 
of the letter ; it had so bewildered me, ensuing on the 
hurry of the morning. The morning hurry and flutter 
had been great, for, long and anxiously as I had waited 
Wemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at last. 
And now, I began to wonder at myself for being in 
the coach, and to doubt whether I had sufficient reason 
for being there, and to consider whether I should get 
out presently and go back, and to argue against ever 
heeding an anonymous communication ; and in short to 
pass through all these phases of contradiction and in- 
decision to which I suppose very few hurried people 
are strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name, 
mastered everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned 
already without knowing it — if that be reasoning — in 
case any harm should bef al him through my not going 
how could I ever forgive myself! 



410 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

It was dark before we got down, and the journey 
seemed long and dreary to me who could see little of it 
inside, and who could not go outside in my disabled 
state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of 
minor reputation down the town, and ordered some 
dinner. While it was preparing, I went to Satis House 
and inquired for Miss Havisham ; she was still very 
ill, though considered something better. 

My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesi- 
astical house, and I dined in a little octagonal common- 
room, like a font. As I was not able to cut my dinner, 
the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for me. 
This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as 
to entertain me with my own story — of course with the 
popular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest 
benefactor and the founder of my fortunes. 

" Do you know the young man?" said I. 

"Know him?" repeated the landlord. "Ever since 
he was — no height at all." 

"Does he ever come back to this neighbour- 
hood?" 

" Ay, he comes back," said the landlord, " to his great 
friends, now and again, and gives the cold-shoulder to 
the man that made him." 

"What man is that?" 

" Him that I speak of," said the landlord. " Mr. Pum- 
blechook. " 

" Is he ungrateful to no one else?" 

"No doubt he would be, if he could," returned the 
landlord, "but he can't. And why? Because Pumble- 
chook done everything for him." 

" Does Pumblechook say so?" 

"Say so!" replied the landlord. "He hain't no call 
to say so." 

" But does he say so? " 

" It would turn a man's blood to white wine winegar 
to hear him tell of it, sir," said the landlord. 

I thought, "Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. 
Long-suffering and loving Joe, you never complain. 
Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!" 

"Your appetite's been touched like, by your accident," 
said the landlord, glancing at the bandaged arm under 
my coat. " Try a tenderer bit." 

" No thank you," I replied, turning from the table to 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 411 

brood near the fire. " I can eat no more. Please take 
it away." 

I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thank- 
lessness to Joe, as through the brazen impostor Pumble 
chook. The falser he, the truer Joe; the meaner he, 
the nobler Joe. 

My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled 
as I mused over the fire for an hour or more. The 
striking of the clock aroused me, but not from my de- 
jection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fast- 
ened round my neck, and went out. I had previously 
sought in my pockets for the letter, that I might refer 
to it again, but I could not find it, and was uneasy to 
think that it must have dropped in the straw of the 
coach. I knew very well, however, that the appointed 
place B was the little sluice-house by the limekiln on the 
marshes, and the hour nine. Towards the marshes I 
now went straight, having no time to spare. 



CHAPTER LIII. 



IT was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I 
left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the 
marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon 
of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large 
moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that 
clear field, in among the piled mountains of cloud. 

There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were 
very dismal. A stranger would have found them in- 
supportable, and even to me they were so oppressive 
that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But, I knew 
them well, and could have found my way on a far darker 
night, and had no excuse for returning, being there. So, 
having come there against my inclination, I went on 
against it. 

The direction that I took, was not that in which my 
old home lay, nor that in which we had pursued the 
convicts. My back was turned towards the distant 
Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old 
lights away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my 
shoulder. I knew the limekiln as well as I knew the 
old Battery, but they were miles apart; so that if a 



412 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

light had been burning at each point that night, there 
would have been a long strip of the blank horizon be- 
tween the two bright specks. 

At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now 
and then to stand still while the cattle that were lying 
in the banked-up pathway, arose and blundered down 
among the grass and reeds. But after a little while, I 
seemed to have the whole flats to myself. 

It was another half -hour before I drew near to the 
kiln. The lime was burning with a sluggish stifling 
smell, but the fires were made up and left, and no 
workmen were visible. Hard by, was a small stone- 
quarry. It lay directly in my way, and had been 
worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows 
that were lying about. 

Coming up again to the marsh level out of this exca- 
vation — for the rude path lay through it — I saw a light 
in the old sluice-house. I quickened my pace, and 
knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some 
reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was 
abandoned and broken, and how the house — of wood 
with a tiled roof — would not be proof against the 
weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how 
the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the 
choking vapour of the kiln crept in a ghostly way 
towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked 
again. No answer still, and I tried the latch. 

It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking 
in, I saw a lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mat- 
tress on a truckle bedstead As there was a loft above, 
I called, " Is there any one here?" but no voice am 
swered. Then, I looked at my watch, and finding that 
it was past nine, called again, " Is there any one here?" 
There being still no answer, I went out at the door, 
irresolute what to do. 

It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save 
what I had seen already, I turned back into the house, 
and stood just within the shelter of the doorway, look- 
ing out into the night. While I was considering that 
some one must have been there lately and must soon be 
coming back, or the candle would not be burning, it 
came into my head to look if the wick were long. I 
turned round to do so, and had taken up the candle in 
my hand, when it was extinguished by some violent 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 413 

shock, and the next thing I comprehended, was, that I 
had been caught in a strong running noose, thrown 
over my head from behind. 

"Now" said a suppressed voice with an oath, "I've 
got you ! " 

"What is this?" I cried, struggling. "Who is it? 
Help, help, help!" 

Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but 
the pressure on my bad arm caused me exquisite pain. 
Sometimes, a strong man's hand, sometimes a strong 
man's breast, was set against my mouth to deaden my 
cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I strug- 
gled ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight 
to the wall. " And now," Said the suppressed voice with 
another oath, "call out again, and I'll make short 
work of you!" 

Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, be- 
wildered by the surprise, and yet conscious how easily 
this threat could be put in execution, I desisted, and 
tried to ease my arm were it ever so little. But, it was 
bound too tight for that. I felt as if, having been burnt 
before, it were now being boiled. 

The sudden exclusion of the night and the substitution 
of black darkness in its place, warned me that the man 
had closed a shutter. After groping about for a little, 
he found the flint and steel he wanted, and began to 
strike a light. I strained my sight upon the sparks that 
fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and 
breathed, match in hand, but I could only see his lips, 
and the blue point of the match; even those, but fitfully. 
The tinder was damp — no wonder there — and one after 
another the sparks died out. 

The man was in no hurry, and struck again . with the 
flint and steel. As the sparks fell thick and bright 
about him, I could see his hands, and touches of his 
face, and could make out that he was seated and bend- 
ing over the table; but nothing more. Presently I saw 
his blue lips again, breathing on the tinder, and then a 
flare of light flashed up, and showed me Orlick. 

Whom I had looked for, I don't know. I had not 
looked for him. Seeing him, I felt that I was in a 
dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes upon him. 

He lighted the candle from the flaring match with 
great deliberation, a,nd dropped the match, and trod it 



414 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

out. Then, he put the candle away from him on the 
table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms 
folded on the table and looked at me. I made out that 
I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few 
inches from the wall — a fixture there — the means of 
ascent to the loft above. 

" Now/' said he, when we had surveyed one another 
for some time, " I've got you." 

" Unbind me. Let me go! " 

" Ah! " he returned, " J'll let you go. I'll let you go 
to the moon, I'll let you go to the stars. All in good 
time." 

" Why have you lured me here? " 
• " Don't you know?" saidHb, with a deadly look. 

" Why have you set upon me in the dark?" 

" Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a 
secret better than two. Oh you enemy, you enemy! " 

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat 
with his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at 
me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it that 
made me tremble. As I watched him in silence, he put 
his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun 
with a brass-bound stock. 

" Do you know this?" said he, making as if he would 
take aim at me. " Do you know where you saw it 
afore? Speak, wolf!" 

" Yes," I answered. 

" You cost me that place. You did. Speak! " 

" What else could I do? " 

"You did that, and that would be enough, without 
more. How dared you come betwixt me and a young 
woman I liked?" 

"When did I?" 

"When didn't you? It was you as always give Old 
Orlick a bad name to her." 

" You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. 
I could have done you no harm, if you had done your- 
self none." 

"You're a liar. And you'll take any pains, and 
spend any money, to drive*me out of this country, will 
you?" said he, repeating my words to Biddy in the 
last interview I had with her. "Now, I'll tell you a 
piece of information. It was never so worth your 
while to get me out of this country, as it is to-night. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 415 

Ah! If it was all your money twenty times told, to the 
last brass farden! ' : As he shook his heavy hand at me, 
with his mouth snarling like a tigers, I felt that it was 
true. 

" What are you going to do to me?" 

" I'm a going/' said he, bringing his fist down upon 
the table with a heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell, 
to give it greater force, "I'm a going to have your 
life!" 

He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched 
his hand and drew it across his mouth as if his mouth 
watered for me, and sat down again. 

"You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you 
was a child. You goes out of his way, this present 
night. He'll have no more on you. You're dead. " 

I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For 
a moment I looked wildly round my trap for any chance 
of escape; but there was none. 

" More than that," said he, folding his arms on the 
table again, "I won't have a rag of you, I won't have 
a bone of you, left on earth. I'll put your body in the 
kiln — I'd carry two such to it, on my shoulders — and, 
let people suppose what they may of you, they shall 
never know nothing." 

My mind, with inconceivable rapidity, followed out 
all the consequences of such a death. Estella's father 
would believe I had deserted him, would be taken, 
would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me, 
when he compared the letter I had left for him, with 
the fact that I had called at Miss Havisham's gate for 
only a moment; Joe and Biddy would never know how 
sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what 
I had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an 
agony I had passed through. The death close before 
me was terrible, but far more terrible than death was 
the dread of being misremembered after death. And 
so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised 
by unborn generations — Estella's children, and their 
children — while the wretch's words were yet on his lips. 

"Now, wolf," said he, "afore I kill you like any other 
beast — which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied 
you up for — I'll have a good look at you and a good 
goad at you. Oh! you enemy! " 

It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for 



416 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

help again; though few could know better than I, the 
solitary nature of the spot, and the hopelessness of aid. 
But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by a 
scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above 
all things, I resolved that I would not entreat him, and 
that I would die making some last poor resistance to 
him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of men 
were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, 
as I did, of Heaven; melted at heart, as I was by the 
thought that I had taken no farewell, and never now 
could take farewell, of those who were dear to me, or 
could explain myself to them, or ask for their compas- 
sion on my miserable errors; still, if I could have killed 
him, even in dying, I would have done it. 

He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and 
bloodshot. Around his neck was slung a tin bottle, as 
I had often seen his meat and drink slung about him 
in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and 
took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong 
spirits that I saw flash into his face. 

"Wolf!" said he, folding his arms again, "Old 
Orlick's a going to tell you somethink. It was you 
as did for your shrew sister." 

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable 
rapidity, had exhausted the whole subject of the attack 
upon my sister, her illness, and her death, before his 
slow and hesitating speech had formed those words. 

"It was you, villain," said I. 

' ' I tell you it was your doing — I tell you it was done 
through you," he retorted, catching up the gun, and 
making a blow with the stock at the vacant air between 
us. "I come upon her from behind, as I come upon 
you to-night. I giv' it her! I left her for dead, and if 
there had been a lime-kiln as nigh her as there is now 
nigh you, she shouldn't have come to life again. But 
it warn't Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was 
favoured, and he was bullied, and beat. Old Orlick 
bullied and beat, eh? Now you pays for it. You done 
it; now you pays for it." 

He drank again, and became more ferocious. • I saw 
by his tilting of the bottle that there was no great 
quantity left in it. I distinctly understood that he was 
working himself up with its contents, to make an end 
of me. I knew that every drop it held ; was a drop of 



i 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 417 

my life. I knew that when I was changed into a part 
of the vapour that had crept towards me but a little 
while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do 
as he had done in my sister's case — make all haste to 
the town, and be seen slouching about there, drinking 
at the ale-houses. My rapid mind pursued him to the 
town, made a picture of the street with him in it, and 
contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and 
the white vapour creeping over it, into which I should 
have dissolved. 

It was not only that I could have summed up years 
and years and years while he said a dozen words, but 
that what he did say, presented pictures to me, and not 
mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my 
brain, I could not think of a place without seeing it, or 
of persons without seeing them. It is impossible to 
over -state the vividness of these images, and yet I was 
so intent, all the time, upon him himself — who would 
not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring! — that I 
knew of the slightest action of his fingers. 

When he drunk this second time, he rose from the 
bench on which he sat, and pushed the table aside. 
Then, he took up the candle, and shading it with his 
murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood 
before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight. 

" Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old 
Orlick as you tumbled over on your stairs that night." 

I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I 
saw the shadows of the heavy stair-rails, thrown by 
the watchman's lantern on the wall. I saw the rooms 
that I was never to see again; here, a door half open; 
there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture 
around. 

"And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you some- 
thing more, wolf. You and her have pretty well hunted 
me out of this country, so far as getting an easy living 
in its goes, and I've took up with new companions, and 
new masters. Some of 'em writes my letters when I 
wants 'em wrote — do you mind ? — writes my letters, 
wolf ! They writes fifty hands; they're not like sneak- 
ing you, as writes but one. I've had a firm mind and a 
firm will to have your life, since you was down here at 
your sister's burying. I han't seen a way to get you 
safe, and I've looked arter you to know your ins and 
vol. i. 27 



418 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself, 'Somehow or 
another I'll have him!' What! When I looks for you, 
I finds your uncle Provis, eh?" 

Mill Pond Bank, and the Chick's Basin, and the Old 
Green Copper Rope- Walk, all so clear and plain! Pro- 
vis in his rooms, the signal whose use was over, pretty 
Clara, the good motherly woman, old Billy Barley on 
his back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my 
life fast running out to sea! 

"You with a uncle too! Why, I knowed you at Gar- 
gery's when you was so small a wolf that I~could have 
took your weazen betwixt this finger and thumb and 
chucked you away dead (as Pd thoughts o' doing, odd 
times, when I saw you a loitering among the pollards 
on a Sunday), and you hadn't found no uncles then. 
No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for to hear 
that your uncle Provis had mostlike wore the leg-iron 
wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these 
meshes ever so many year ago, and wot he kep by him 
till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he 
means to drop you — hey? — when he come for to hear 
that— hey? " 

In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close 
at me, that I turned my face aside to save it from the 
flame. 

"Ah!" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, "the 
burnt child dreads the fire! Old Orlick knowed you 
was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was a sumggling 
your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you 
and knowed you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you 
something more, wolf, and this ends it. There's them 
that's as good a match for your uncle Provis as Old Orlick 
has been for you. Let him 'ware them, when he's lost 
his nevvy. Let him 'ware them, when no man can't 
find a rag of his dear relation's clothes, nor yet a bone 
of his body. There's them that can't and that won't 
have Magwitch — yes, /know the name! — alive in the 
same land with them, and that's had such sure infor- 
mation of him when he was alive in another land, as 
that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it unbeknown and 
put them in danger. P'raps it's them that writes fifty 
hands, and that's not like sneaking you as writes 
but one. 'Ware Compeyson, Magwitch, and the 
gallows!" 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 419 

He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face 
and hair, and for an instant blinding me, and turned 
his -powerful back as he replaced the light on the table. 
I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and 
Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again. 

There was a clear space of a few feet between the 
table and the opposite wall. Within this space, he now 
slouched backwards and forwards. His great strength 
seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before, as 
he did this with his hands hanging loose and heavy at 
his sides, and with his eyes scowling at me. I had no 
grain of hope left. Wild as my inward hurry was, and 
wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by me 
instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand that 
unless he had resolved that I was within a few mo- 
ments of surely perishing out of all human knowledge, 
he would never have told me what he had told. 

Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of h"s 
bottle, and tossed it away. Light as it was, I heard it 
fall like a plummet. He swallowed slowly, tilting up 
the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at me 
no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into 
the palm of his hand, and licked up. Then with a 
sudden hurry of violence and swearing horribly, he 
threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw in 
his hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle. 

The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, with- 
out uttering one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted 
out with all my might, and struggled with all my 
might. It was only my head an legs that I could move, 
but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until 
then unknown, that was within me. In the same 
instant I heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a 
gleam of light dash in at the door, heard voices and 
tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, 
as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, 
and fly out into the night! 

After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on 
the door, in the same place, with my head on some one's 
knee. My eyes were fixed on the ladder against the 
wall, when I came to myself — had opened on it before 
my mind saw it — and thus as I recovered consciousness, 
I knew I was in the place where I had lost it. 

Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascer- 



420 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

tain who supported me, I was lying looking at the 
ladder, when there came, between me and it, a face. 
The face of Trabb's boy! 

"I think he's all right!" said Trabb's boy, in a sober 
voice; " but ain't he just pale though!" 

At these words, the face of him who supported me 
looked over into mine, and I saw my supporter to 
be- 

"Herbert! Great Heaven! " 

" Softly," said Herbert. " Gently, Handel. Don't be 
too eager." 

"And our old com ade, Startop!" I cried, as he too 
bent over me. 

" Remember what he is going to assist us in," said 
Herbert, "and be calm." 

The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped 
again from the pain in my arm. "The time has not 
gone by, Herbert, has it? What night is to-night? 
How long have I been here?" For, I had a strange 
and strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long 
time — a day and a night — two days and nights — more. 

" The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night." 

"Thank God!" 

"And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in," 
said Herbert. "But you can't help groaning, my dear 
Handel. What hurt have you got? Can you stand?" 

" Yes, yes," said I, " I can walk. I have no hurt but 
in this throbbing arm." 

They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was 
violently swollen and inflamed, and I could scarcely 
endure to have it touched. But, they tore up their 
handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully 
replaced it in the sling, until we could get to the town 
and obtain some cooling lotion to put upon it. In a 
little while we had shut the door of the dark and empty 
sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on 
our way back. Trabb's boy — Trabb's overgrown young 
man now — went before us with a lantern, which was 
the light I had seen come in at the door. But, the moon 
was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen 
the sky, and the night though rainy was much lighter. 
The white vapour of the kiln was passing from us as 
we went by, and, as I had thought a prayer before, I 
thought a thanksgiving now. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 421 

Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my 
rescue — which at first he had flatly refused to do, 
but had insisted on my remaining quiet — I learnt that 
I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our cham- 
bers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop 
whom he had met in the street on his way to me, found 
it, very soon after I was gone. Its tone made him un- 
easy, and the more so because of the inconsistency 
between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His 
uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding after a 
quarter of an hour's consideration, he set off for the 
coach-office, with Startop, who volunteered his com- 
pany, to make inquiry when the next coach went down. 
Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and find- 
ing that his uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as 
obstacles came in his way, he resolved to follow in a 
post-chaise. So, he and Startop arrived at the Blue 
Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; 
but, finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where 
they lost me. Hereupon they went back to the hotel 
(doubtless at about the time when I was hearing the 
popular local version of my own story), to refresh them- 
selves and to get some one to guide them out upon the 
marshes. Among the loungers under the Boar's arch- 
way, happened to be Trabb's boy — true to his ancient 
habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no 
business — and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from 
Miss Havisham's in the direction of my dining-place. 
Thus, Trabb's boy became their guide, and with him 
they went out to the sluice-house; though by the town 
way to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as 
they went along, Herbert reflected, that I might, after 
all, have been brought there on some genuine and ser- 
viceable errand tending to Pro vis's safety, and, bethink- 
ing himself that in that case interruption might be mis- 
chievous, left his guide and Startop on the edge of the 
quarry, and went on by himself, and stole round the 
house two or three times, endeavoring to ascertain 
whether all was right within. As he could hear nothing 
but indistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was 
while my mind was so busy), he even at last began to 
doubt whether I was there, when suddenly I cried out 
loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely 
followed by the other two. 



422 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

When I told Herbert what had passed within the 
house, he was for our immediately going before a magis- 
trate in the town, late at night as it was, and getting 
out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such 
a course, by detaining us there, or binding us to come 
back, might be fatal to Provis. There was no gain- 
saying this difficulty, and we relinquished all thoughts 
of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the present, under 
the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather 
light of the matter to Trabb's boy; who I am convinced 
would have been much affected by disappointment, if 
he had known that his intervention saved me from 
the limekiln. Not that Trabb's boy was of a malignant 
nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and 
that it was in his constitution to want variety and ex- 
citement at anybody's expense. When we parted, I 
presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet 
lis views), and told him that that I was sorry ever to 
lave had an ill opinion of him (which made no impres- 
sion on him at all). 

Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to 
go back to London that night, three in the post-chaise; 
the rather, as we should then be clear away, before the 
night's adventure began to be talked of. Herbert got a 
large bottle of stuff for my arm, and by dint of having 
this stuff dropped over it all the night through, I was 
just able to bear its pain on the journey. It was day- 
light when we reached the Temple, and I went at once 
to bed, and lay in bed all day t 

My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill and being un- 
fitted for to-morrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it 
did not disable me of itself. It would have done so, 
pretty surely, in conjunction with the mental wear and 
tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon 
me that to-morrow was. So anxiously looked forward 
to, charged with such consequences, its results so im- 
penetrably hidden though so near. 

No precaution could have been more obvious than our 
refraining from communication with him that day; yet 
this again increased my restlessness. I started at every 
footstep and every sound, believing that he was dis- 
covered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell 
me so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken ; 
that there was something more upon my mind than a 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 423 

fear or a presentiment; that the fact had occurred, and 
I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the day wore 
on and no ill news came, as the day closed in and 
darkness fell, my overshadowing dread of being dis- 
abled by illness before to-morrow morning, altogether 
mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burn- 
ing head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to 
wander. I counted up to high numbers, to make sure 
of myself, and repeated passages that I knew in prose 
and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere 
escape of a fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments 
or forgot ; then I would say to myself with a start, 
" Now it has come, and I am turning delirious ! " 

They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm 
constantly dressed, and gave me cooling drinks. When- 
ever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion I had had in 
the sluice-house, that a long time had elapsed and the 
opportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got 
out of bed and went to Herbert, with the conviction that 
I had been asleep for four-and-twenty hours, and that 
Wednesday was past. It was the last self -exhausting 
effort of my f retfulness, for after that, I slept soundly. 

Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked 
out of window. The winking lights upon the bridges 
were already pale, the coming sun was like a marsh of 
fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, 
was spanned by bridges that were turning coldly grey, 
with here and there at top a warm touch from the burn- 
ing in the sky. As I looked along the clustered roofs, 
with church towers and spires shooting into the un- 
usually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to 
be drawn from the river, and millions of sparkles burst 
out upon its waters. From me too, a veil seemed to be 
drawn, and I felt strong and well. 

Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow- 
student lay asleep on the sofa. I could not dress myself 
without help, but I made up the fire which was still 
burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good 
time they too started up strong and well, and we ad- 
mitted the sharp morning air at the windows, and looked 
at the tide that was still flowing towards us. 

" When it turns at nine o'clock," said Herbert, cheer- 
fully, " look out for us, and stand ready, you over there 
at Mill Pond Bank ! " 



424 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



CHAPTER LIV. 

IT was one of those March days when the sun shines 
hot and the wind blows cold : when it is summer in 
the light, and winter in the shade. We had our pea- 
coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly pos- 
sessions I took no more than the few necessaries that 
filled the bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or 
when I might return, were questions utterly unknown 
to me ; nor did I vex my mind with them, for it was 
wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the 
passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked 
back, under what altered circumstances I should next 
see those rooms, if ever. 

We loitered down to the Temple stairs and stood 
loitering there, as if we were not quite decided to go 
upon the water at all. Of course I had taken care that 
the boat should be ready and everything in order. After 
a little show of indecision, which there were none to see 
but the two or three amphibious creatures belonging to 
our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off; 
Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about high- 
water — half -past eight. 

Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down 
at nine, and being with us until three, we intended 
still to creep on after it had turned, and row against 
it until dark. We should then be well in those long 
reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, 
where the river is broad and solitary, where the water- 
side inhabitants are very few, and where lone public- 
houses are scattered here and there, of which we could 
choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie 
by, all night. The steamer for Hamburg, and the 
steamer for Rotterdam, would start from London at 
about nine on Thursday morning. We should know 
at what time to expect them, according to where we 
were, and would hail the first ; so that if by any ac- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 425 

cident we were not taken aboard, we should have an- 
other chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of 
each vessel. 

The relief of being at last engaged in the execution 
of the purpose, was so great to me that I felt it difficult 
to realise the condition in which I had been a few hours 
before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on 
the river, and the moving river itself — the road that 
ran with us, seeming to sympathise with us, animate 
us, and encourage us on — freshened me with new hope. 
I felt mortified to be of so little use in the boat; but 
there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, 
and they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last 
all day. 

At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was 
far below its present extent, and watermen's boats 
were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing colliers, 
and coasting-traders, there were perhaps as many as 
now; but, of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe 
or a twentieth part so many. Early as it was, there 
were plenty of scullers going here and there that 
morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the 
tide; the navigation of the river between bridges, 
in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner 
matter in those days than it is in these; and we went 
ahead among many skiffs and wherries, briskly. 

Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Bill- 
ingsgate market with its oyster-boats and Dutchmen, 
and the White Tower and Traitors' Gate, and we were 
in among the tiers of shipping. Here, were the Leith, 
Aberdeen, and Glasgow steamers, loading and unload- 
ing goods, and looking immensely high out of the 
water as we passed alongside; here, were colliers by 
the score and score, with the coal-whippers plunging 
off stages on deck, as counterweights to measures of 
coal swinging up, which were then rattled over the 
side into barges; here, at her moorings was to-morrow's 
steamer for Rotterdam, of which we took good notice; 
and here, to-morrow's for Hamburg, under whose 
bowsprit we crossed. And now I, sitting in the stern, 
could see with a faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank 
and Mill Pond stairs. 

"Is he there?" said Herbert. 

"Not yet." 



426 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. 
Can you see his signal?" 

"Not well from here; but I think I see it. — Now, I 
see him! Pull both. Easy, Herbert. Oars!" 

We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, 
and he was on board and we were off again. He had 
a boat-cloak with him, and a black canvas bag, and he 
looked as like a river-pilot as my heart could have 
wished. 

" Dear boy ! " he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, 
as he took his seat. "Faithful dear boy, well done. 
Thankye, thankye!" 

Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding 
rusty chain-cables, frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing 
buoys, sinking for the moment floating broken baskets, 
scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, cleaving 
floating scum of coal, in and out, under the figure-head 
of the John of Sunderland making a speech to the 
winds (as is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of 
Yarmouth with a firm formality of bosom and her 
knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head; in 
and out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws 
going at timber, clashing engines going at things un- 
known, pumps going in leaky ships, capstans going, 
ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures 
roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lighter- 
men; in and out — out at last upon the clearer river, 
where the ships' boys might take their fenders in, no 
longer fishing in troubled waters with them over the 
side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to the 
wind. 

At the Stairs where we had taken him aboard, and 
ever since, I had looked warily for any token of our 
being suspected. I had seen none. We certainly had 
not been, and at that time as certainly we were not, either 
attended or followed by any boat. If we had been 
waited on by any boat, I should have run in to shore, 
and have obliged her to go on, or to make her purpose 
evident. But, we held our own, without any appearance 
of molestation. 

He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have 
said, a natural part of the scene. It was remarkable 
(but perhaps the wretched life he had led, accounted 
for it), that he was the least anxious of any of us. He 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 42? 

was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live 
to see his gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a 
foreign country; he was not disposed to be passive or 
resigned, as I understood it; but he had no notion of 
meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, 
he confronted it, but it must come before he troubled 
himself. 

" If you knowed, dear boy," he said to me, " what it 
is to sit here alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, 
arter having been day by day betwixt four walls, you'd 
envy me. But you don't know what it is." 

"I think I know the delights of freedom," I 
answered. 

" Ah," said he, shaking his head gravely. " But you 
don't know it equal to me. You must have been under 
lock and key, dear boy, to know it equal to me — but I 
ain't a going to be low." 

It occurred to me as inconsistent, that for any master- 
ing idea, he should have endangered his freedom and 
even his life. But I reflected that perhaps freedom 
without danger was too much apart from all the habit 
of his existence to be to him what it would be to another 
man. I was not far out, since he said, after smoking 
a little : 

" You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other 
side the world, I was always a looking to this side; and 
it come flat to be there, for all I was a growing rich. 
Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could 
come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head 
would be troubled about him. They ain't so easy con- 
cerning me here, dear boy — wouldn't be, leastwise, if 
they knowed where I was." 

" If all goes well," said I, " you will be perfectly free 
and safe again, within a few hours." 

" Well." he returned, drawing a long breath, " I hope 
so." 

" And think so?" 

He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gun- 
wale, and said, smiling with that softened air upon 
him which was not new to me: 

"Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled 
to be more quiet and easy-going than we are at present. 
But — it's a flowing so soft and pleasant through the 
water, p'raps, as makes me think it — I was a thinking 



428 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

through my smoke just then, that we can no more see 
to the bottom of the next few hours, than we can see 
to the bottom of this river what I catches hold of. Nor 
yet we can't no more hold their tide than I can hold 
this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you 
see!" holding up his dripping hand. 

"But for your face, I should think you we're a little 
despondent," said I. 

" Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on 
so quiet, and of that there rippling at the boat's head 
making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe I'm a growing 
a trifle old besides." 

He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undis- 
turbed expression of face, and sat as composed and 
contented as if we were already out of England. Yet 
he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had 
been in constant terror, for, when we ran ashore to get 
some bottles of beer into the boat, and he was stepping 
out, I hinted that I thought he would be safest where 
he was, and he said " Do you, dear boy?" and quietly 
sat down again. 

The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright 
day, and the sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran 
strong, I took care to lose none of it, and our steady 
stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By imperceptible 
degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of 
the nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and 
lower between the muddy banks, but the tide was yet 
with us when we were off Gravesend. As our charge 
was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a 
boat or two's length of the floating Custom House, and 
so out to catch the stream, alongside of two emigrant 
ships, and under the bows of a large transport with 
troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And soon 
the tide began to slacken, and the craft laying at 
anchor to swing, and presently they had all swung 
round, and the ships that were taking advantage of the 
new tide to get up to the Pool, began to crowd upon us 
in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of 
the strength of the tide as we could, standing carefully 
off from low shallows and mud-banks. 

Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occa- 
sionally let her drive with the tide for a minute or two, 
that a quarter of an hour's rest proved full as much as 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 429 

they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery 
stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, 
and looked about. It was like my own marsh country, 
flat and monotonous, and with a dim horizon; while 
the winding river turned and turned, and the great 
floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything 
else seemed stranded and still. For, now, the last of 
the fleet of ships was round the last low point we had 
headed; and the last green barge, straw-laden, with a 
brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, 
shaped like a child's first rude intimation of a boat, to 
lay low in the mud; and a little squat shoal-lighthouse 
on open piles, stood crippled in the mud on stilts and 
crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and 
slimy stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks 
and tidemarks stuck out of the mud, and an old landing- 
stage and an old roofless building slipped into the mud, 
and all about us was stagnation and mud. 

We pushed off again, and made what way we could. 
It was much harder work now, but Herbert and Startop 
persevered, and rowed, and rowed, and rowed, until the 
sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a 
little, so that we could see above the bank. There 
was the red sun on the low level of the shore, in a 
purple haze, fast deepening into black; and there was 
the solitary flat marsh; and far away there were the 
rising grounds, between which and us there seemed 
to be no life, save here and there in the foreground a 
melancholy gull. 

As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being 
past the full, would not rise early, we held a little coun- 
cil: a short one, for clearly our course was to lie by at 
the first lonely tavern we could find. So, they plied 
their oars once more, and I looked out for anything like 
a house. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or 
five dull miles. It was very cold, and, a collier coming 
by us, with her galley-fire smoking and flaring, looked 
like a comfortable home. The night was dark by this 
time as it would be until morning; what light we had, 
seemed to come more from the river than the sky, as 
the oars in their dipping struck at a few reflected stars. 

At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed 
by the idea that we were followed. As the tide made, 
it flapped heavily at irregular intervals against the shore; 



430 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

and whenever such a sound came, one or other of us was 
sure to start and look in that direction. Here and there 
the set of the current had worn down the bank into a 
little creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, 
and eyed them nervously. Sometimes, "What was that 
ripple!'* one of us would say in a low voice. Or 
another, "Is that a boat yonder?" And afterwards, 
we would fall into a dead silence, and I would sit im- 
patiently thinking with what an unusual amount of 
noise the oars worked in the thowels. 

At length we described a light and a roof, and pres- 
ently afterwards ran alongside a little causeway made 
of stones that had been picked up hard-by. Leaving 
the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the 
light to be in the window of a public-house. It was a 
dirty place enough, and I dare say not unknown to 
smuggling adventurers; but there was a good fire in the 
kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and 
various liquors to drink. Also, there were two double- 
bedded room — "such as they were," the landlord said. 
No other company was in the house than the landlord, 
his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the "Jack " of the 
little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he 
had been low-water mark too. 

With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, 
and we all came ashore, and brought out the oars, and 
rudder, and boat-hook, and all else, and hauled her up 
for the night. We made a very good meal by the 
kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert 
and Startop were to occupy one, I and our charge the 
other. We found the air as carefully excluded from 
both as if air were fatal to life; and there were more 
dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds, than I 
should have thought the family possessed. But, we 
considered ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a 
more solitary place we could not have found. 

While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after 
our meal, the Jack — who was sitting in a corner, and 
who had a bloated pair of shoes on, which he had ex- 
hibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as 
interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from 
the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashore — asked 
me if we had seen a four-oared galley going up with 
the tide? When I told him no, he said she must have 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 431 

gone down then, and yet she "took up too/' when she 
left there. 

"They must ha' thought better on't for some reason 
or another," said the Jack, " and gone down." 

"A four-oared galley, did you say?" said I. 

"A four," said the Jack, "and two sitters." 

" Did they come ashore here?" 

" They put in with a stone two-gallon jar, for some 
beer. I'd ha' been glad to pison the beer myself," said 
the Jack, " or put some rattling physic in it." 

"Why?" 

"I know why," said the Jack. He spoke in a 
slushy voice, as if much mud had washed into his 
throat. 

"He thinks," said the landlord: a weakly meditative 
man with a pale eye, who seemed to rely greatly on his 
Jack: " he thinks they w^as, what they wasn't." 

"J knows what I thinks," observed the Jack. 

"You thinks Custum 'Us, Jack?" said the landlord. 

"I do," said the Jack. 

"Then you're wrong, Jack." 

"Am I!" 

In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless 
confidence in his views, the Jack took one of his 
bloated shoes off, looked into it, knocked a few stones 
out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on again. He 
did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that 
he could afford to do anything. 

" Why, what do you make out that they done with 
their buttons then, Jack?" asked the landlord, vacil- 
lating weakly. 

"Done with their buttons?" returned the Jack. 
" Chucked 'em overboard. Swallered 'em. Sowed 'em, 
to come up small salad. Done with their buttons!" 

" Don't be cheeky, Jack," remonstrated the land- 
lord, in a melancholy and pathetic way. 

"A Custum 'Us officer knows what to do with his 
Buttons," said the Jack, repeating the obnoxious word 
with the greatest contempt, "when they comes be- 
twixt him and his own light. A Four and two sitters 
don't go hanging and hovering, up with one tide and 
down with another, and both with and against another, 
without there being Custum 'Us at the bottom of it." 
Saying which he went out in disdain; and the landlord, 



432 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

having no one to rely upon, found it impracticable to 
pursue the subject. 

This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very un- 
easy. The dismal wind was muttering round the house, 
the tide was flapping at the shore, and I had a feeling 
that we were caged and threatened. A four-oared gal- 
ley hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract 
this notice, was an ugly circumstance that I could not 
get rid of. When I had induced Provis to go up to bed, I 
went outside with my two companions (Startop by this 
time knew the state of the case), and held another 
council. Whether we should remain at the house until 
near the steamer's time, which would be about one in 
the afternoon; or whether we should put off early in 
the morning; was the question we discussed. On the 
whole we deemed it the better course to lie where we 
were, until within an hour or so of the steamer's time, 
and then to get out in her track, and drift easily with 
the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into 
the house and went to bed. 

I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, 
and slept well for a few hours. When I awoke, the 
wind had risen, and the sign of the house (the Ship) 
was creaking and banging about, with noises that 
startled me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast 
asleep, I looked out of the window. It commanded 
the causeway where we had hauled up our boat; and, 
as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the 
clouded moon, I saw two men looking into her. They 
passed by under the window, looking at nothing else, 
and they did not go down to the landing-place which I 
could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh 
in the direction of the Nore. 

My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show 
him the two men going away. But, reflecting before I 
got into his room, which was at the back of the house 
and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a 
harder day than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. 
Going back to my window, I could see the two men 
moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon 
lost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of 
the matter, and fell asleep again. 

We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all 
four together, before breakfast, I deemed it right to re- 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 433 

count what I had seen. Again our charge was the 
least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the 
men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, 
and that they had no thought of us. I tried to per- 
suade myself that it was so — as, indeed, it might easily 
be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk 
away together to a distant point we could see, and that 
the boat should take us aboard there, or as near there 
as might prove feasible, at about noon. This being 
considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast 
he and I set forth, without saying anything at the 
tavern. 

He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes 
stopped to clap me on the shoulder. One would have 
supposed that it was I who was in danger, not he, and 
that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As 
we approached the point, I begged him to remain in a 
sheltered place, while I went on to reconnoitre; for, it 
was towards it that the men had passed in the night. He 
complied, and I went on alone. There was no boat off 
the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor 
were there any signs of the men having embarked 
there. But, to be sure, the tide was high, and there 
might have been some footprints under water. 

When he looked out from his shelter in the distance, 
and saw that I waved my hat to him to come up, he 
rejoined me, and there we waited; sometimes lying on 
the bank wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving 
about to warm ourselves : until we saw our boat coming 
round. We got aboard easily, and rowed out into the 
track of the steamer. By that time it wanted but 
ten minutes of one o'clock, and we began to look out 
for her smoke. 

But, it was half -past one before we saw her smoke, 
and soon afterwards we saw behind it the smoke of an- 
other steamer. As they were coming on at full speed, 
we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity 
of saying good-by to Herbert and Startop. We had all 
shaken hands cordially, and neither Herbert's eyes nor 
mine were quite dry, when I saw a four-oared galley 
shoot out from under the bank but a little way ahead of 
us, and row out into the same track. 

A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the 
steamer's smoke, by reason of the bend and wind of the 
vol. I. 28 






434 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

river; but now she was visible, coming head on. I called 
to Herbert and Startop to keep before the tide, that 
she might see us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis 
to sit quite still, wrapped in his cloak. He answered 
cheerily, " Trust to me, dear boy," and sat like a statue. 
Meantime the galley, which was skilfully handled, had 
crossed us, let us come up with her, and fallen along- 
side. Leaving just room enough for the play of the 
oars, she kept alongside, drifting when we drifted, 
and pulling a stroke or two when we pulled. Of the 
two sitters, one held the rudder lines, and looked at us 
attentively — as did all the rowers; the other sitter was 
wrapped up, much as Provis was, and seemed to shrink, 
and whisper some instruction to the steerer as he looked 
at us. Not a word was spoken in either boat. 

Startop could make out, after a few minutes, which 
steamer was first, and gave me the word "Hamburg," in 
a low voice as we sat face to face. She was nearing us 
very fast, and the beating of her paddles grew louder 
and louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely 
upon us, when the galley hailed us. I answered. 

" You have a returned Transport there," said the man 
who held the lines. "That's the man, wrapped in the 
cloak. His name is Abel Magwitch, otherwise Provis. 
I apprehend that man, and call upon him to surrender, 
and you to assist." 

At the same moment, without giving any audible 
direction to his crew, he ran the galley aboard of us. 
They had pulled one sudden stroke ahead, and got their 
oars in, had run athwart us, and were holding onto 
our gunwale, before we knew what they were doing. 
This caused great confusion on board of the steamer, 
and I heard them calling to us, and heard the order 
given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but felt 
her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same 
moment, I saw the steersman of the galley lay his hand 
on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw that both boats 
were swinging round with the force of the tide, and saw 
that all hands on board the steamer were running for- 
ward quite frantically. Still in the same moment, I 
saw the prisoner start up, lean across his captor, and 
pull the cloak from the neck of the shrinking sitter 
in the galley. Still in the same moment I saw that 
the face disclosed, was the face of the other convict 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 435 

of long ago. Still in the same moment I saw the 
face tilt backward with a white terror on it that I 
shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board 
the steamer and a loud splash in the water, and felt 
the boat sink from under me. 

It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle 
with a thousand mill-weirs and a thousand flashes of 
light; that instant past, I was taken on board the gal- 
ley. Herbert was there, and Startop was there; but our 
boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone. 

What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the 
furious blowing off of her steam, and her driving on, 
and our driving on, I could not at first distinguish 
sky from water or shore from shore; but, the crew of 
the galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling 
certain swift strong strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, 
every man looking silentlj r and eagerly at the water 
astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it, bearing 
towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steers- 
man held up his hand, and all softly backed water, and 
kept the boat straight and true before it. As it came 
nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming, but not 
swimming freely. He was taken on board, and in- 
stantly manacled at the wrists and ancles. 

The galley was kept steady, and the silent eager 
looker-out at the water was resumed. But, the Rotter- 
dam steamer now came up, and apparently not under- 
standing what had happened, came on at speed. By 
the time she had been hailed and stopped, both steamers 
were drifting away from us, and we were rising and 
falling in a troubled wake of water. The look-out was 
kept, long after all was still again and the two steam- 
ers were gone ; but, everybody knew that it was hope- 
less now. 

At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore 
towards the tavern we had lately left, where we were 
received with no little surprise. Here, I was able to get 
some comforts for Magwitch — Provis no longer — who 
had received some very severe injury in the chest and 
a deep cut in the head. 

He told me that he believed himself to have gone 
under the keel of the steamer, and to have been struck 
on the head in rising. The injury to his chest (which 
rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought 



436 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

he had received against the side of the galley. He 
added that he did not pretend to say what he might or 
might not have done to Compeyson, but, that in the 
moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify 
him, that villain had staggered up and staggered bacl£, 
and they had both gone overboard together ; when 
the sudden wrenching of him (Magwitch) out of our 
boat, and the endeavour of his captor to keep him in 
it, had capsized us. He told me in a whisper that 
they had gone down, fiercely locked in each other's 
arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, 
and that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and 
swum away. 

I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of 
what he thus told me. The officer who steered the 
galley gave the same account of their going overboard. 

When I asked this officer's permission to change the 
prisoner's wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments 
I could get at the public-house, he gave it readily: mere- 
ly observing that he must take charge of everything 
his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book which 
had once been in my hands, passed into the officer's. 
He further gave me "leave to accompany the prisoner 
to London ; but, declined to accord that grace to my 
two friends. 

The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the 
drowned man had gone down, and undertook to search 
for the body in the places where it was likeliest to come 
ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to be 
much heightened when he heard that it had stockings 
on. Probably, it took about a dozen drowned men to 
fit him out completely; and that may have been the 
reason why the different articles of his dress were in 
various stages of decay. 

We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, 
and then Magwitch was carried down to the galley and 
put on board. Herbert and Startop were to get to 
London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful 
parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's 
side, I felt that that was my place henceforth while he 
lived. 

For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away, 
and in the hunted wounded shackled creature who held 
my hand in his, I only saw a man who had meant to 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 437 

be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, 
gratefully, and generously, towards me with great con- 
stancy through a series of years. I only saw in him a 
much better man than I had been to Joe. 

His breathing became more difficult and painful as 
the night drew on, and often he could not repress a 
groan. I tried to rest him on the arm I could use, 
in any easy position ; but, it was dreadful to think that 
I could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, 
since it was unquestionably best that he should die. 
That there were, still living, people enough who were 
able and willing to identify him, I could not doubt. 
That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He 
who had been presented in the worst light at his trial, 
who had since broken prison and been tried again, who 
had returned from transportation under a life sentence, 
and who had occasioned the death of the man who was 
the cause of his arrest. 

As we returned towards the setting sun we had 
yesterday left behind us, and as the stream of our 
hopes seemed all running back, I told him how grieved 
I was to think he had come home for my sake. 

" Dear boy," he answered, " I'm quite content to take 
my chance. I've seen my boy, and he can be a gentle 
man without me." 

No. I had thought about that while we had been 
there side by side. No. Apart from any inclinations 
of my own, I understand Wemmick's hint now. I 
foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would 
be forfeited to the Crown. 

"Lookee here, dear boy," said he. "It's best as a 
gentleman should not be knowed to belong to me now. 
Only come to see me as if you come by chance alonger 
Wemmick, Sit where I can see you when I am swore 
to, for the last o' many times, and I don't ask no 
more." 

"I will never stir from your side," said I, "when I 
am suffered to be near you. Please God, I will be as 
true to you as you have been to me! " 

I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned 
his face away as he lay in the bottom of the boat, and 
I heard that old sound in his throat — softened now, like 
all the rest of him. It was a good thing that he had 
touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might 



438 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

not otherwise have thought of until too late: that he 
need never know how his hopes of enriching me had 
perished. 



CHAPTER LV. 



HE was taken to the Police Court next day, and 
•would have been immediately committed for trial, 
but that it was necessary to send down for an old officer 
of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped, to 
speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but, Com- 
peyson, who had meant to depose to it, was tumbling on 
the tides, dead, and it happened that there was not at 
that time a prison officer in London who could give the 
required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at 
his private house, on my arrival over-night, to retain 
his assistance, and Mr. Jaggers on the prisoner's behalf 
would admit nothing. It was the sole resource, for he 
told me that the case must be over in five minutes when 
the witness was there, and that no power on earth 
could prevent its going against us. 

I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him 
in ignorance of the fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers 
was querulous and angry with me for having "let it 
slip through my fingers," and said we must memorialise 
by-and-by, and try at all events for some of it. But, 
he did not conceal from me that although there might 
be many cases in which forfeiture would not be exacted, 
there were no circumstances in this case to make it 
one of them. I understood that very well. I was not re- 
lated to the outlaw, or connected with him by any recog- 
nisable tie; he had put his hand to no writing or settle- 
ment in my favour before his apprehension, and to do so 
now would be idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved, 
and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my 
heart should never be sickened with the hopeless task 
of attempting to establish one. 

There appeared to be reason for supposing that the 
drowned informer had hoped for a reward out of this 
forfeiture, and had obtained some accurate knowledge 
of Magwitch's affairs. When his body was found, 
many miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 439 

disfigured that he was only recognisable by the con- 
tents of his pockets, notes were still legible, folded in a 
case he carried. Among these were the name of a 
banking-house in New South Wales where a sum of 
money was, and the designation of certain lands of 
considerable value. Both those heads of information 
were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to 
Mr. Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should 
inherit. His ignorance, poor fellow, at last served him; 
he never mistrusted but that my inheritance was quite 
safe, with Mr. Jaggers's aid. 

After three days' delay, during which the crown 
prosecution stood over for the production of the wit- 
ness from the prison-ship, the witness, came and com- 
pleted the easy case. He was committed to take his 
trial at the next Sessions, which would come on in a 
month. 

It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert re- 
turned home one evening, a good deal cast down, and 
said: 

"My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave 
you." 

His partner having prepared me for that, I was less 
surprised than he thought. 

"We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going 
to Cairo, and I am very much afraid I must go, Handel, 
when you most need me." 

" Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall 
always love you; but my need is no greater now than 
at another time." 

"You will be so lonely." 

" I have not leisure to think of that," said I. "You 
know that I am always with him to the full extent of 
the time allowed, and that I should be with him all day 
long, if I could. And when I come away from him, 
you know that my thoughts are with him." 

The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was 
so appalling to both of us, that we could not refer to it 
in plainer words. 

" My dear fellow," said Herbert, " let the near prospect 
of our separation — for, it is very near — be my justifica- 
tion for troubling you about yourself. Have you thought 
of your future?" 

"No, for I have been afraid to think of any future." 



REAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear 
dear Handel, it must not be dismissed. I wish you 
would enter on it now, as far as a few friendly words 
go, with me." 

"I will," said I. 

" In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must 
have a " 

I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, 
so I said, " A clerk." 

"A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he 
may expand (as a clerk of your acquaintance has 

expanded) into a partner. Now, Handel in short, 

my dear boy will you come to me?" 

There was something charmingly cordial and en- 
gaging in the manner in which after saying "Now, 
Handel," as if it were the grave beginning of a por- 
tentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up 
that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken 
like a schoolboy. 

"Clara and I have talked about it again and again," 
Herbert pursued, "and the dear little thing begged me 
only this evening, with tears in her eyes, to say to you 
that if you will live with us when we come together, 
she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince 
her husband's friend that he is her friend too. We 
should get on so well, Handel! " 

I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, 
but said I could not yet make sure of joining him as he 
so kindly offered. Firstly, my mind was too preoccupied 
to be able to take in the subject clearly. Secondly — Yes ! 
Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in 
my thoughts that will come out very near the end of 
this slight narrative. 

' ' But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, with- 
out doing any injury to your business, leave the question 
open for a little while " 

' £ For any while, " cried Herbert. "Six months, a year ! " 

" Not so long as that," said I. " Two or three months 
at most." 

Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands 
on this arrangement, and said he could now take 
courage to tell me that he believed he must go away at 
the end of the week. 
"And Clara?" said I. 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 441 

/'The dear little thing," returned Herbert, "holds 
dutifully to her father as long as he lasts; but he won't 
last long. Mrs. Whimple confides to me that he is cer- 
tainly going.'' 

"Not to say an unfeeling thing," said I, "he cannot 
do better than go." 

"I am afraid that must be admitted," said Herbert : 
"and then I shall come back for the dear little thing, 
and the dear little thing and I will walk quietly into the 
nearest church. Remember! The blessed darling comes 
of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into 
the red book, and hasn't a notion about her grandpapa. 
What a fortune for the son of my mother! " 

On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave 
of Herbert — full of bright hope, but sad and sorry to 
leave me — as he sat on one of the seaport mail coaches. 
I went into a coffee-house to write a little note to Clara, 
telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over 
and over again, and then went to my lonely home — if it 
deserved the name, for it was now no home to me, and I 
had no home anywhere. 

On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was 
coming down, after an unsuccessful application of his 
knuckles to my door. I had not seen him alone, since 
the disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and he had 
come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few 
words of explanation in reference to that failure. 

"The late Compeyson," said Wemmick, "had by little 
and little got at the bottom of half of the regular business 
now transacted, and it was from the talk of some of his 
people in trouble (some of his people being always in 
trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, 
seeming to have them shut, until I heard that he was 
absent, and I thought that would be the best time for 
making the attempt. I can only suppose now, that it 
was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually 
to deceive his own instruments. You don't blame me, 
I hope, Mr. Pip? I am sure I tried to serve you, with all 
my heart." 

"I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and 
I thank you most earnestly for all your interest and 
friendship." 

" Thank you, thank you very much. It's a bad job," 
said Wemmick, scratching his head, " and I assure you 



442 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I haven't been so cut up for a long time. What I look 
at, is the sacrifice of so much portable property. Dear 
me!" 

"What J think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of 
the property." 

"Yes, to be sure," said Wemmick. " Of course there 
can be no objection to your being sorry for him, and I'd 
put down a five-pound note myself to get him out of it. 
But what I look at, is this. The late Compeyson having 
been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, 
and being so determined to bring him to book, I do not 
think he could have been saved. Whereas, the por- 
table property certainly could have been saved. That's 
the difference between the property and the owner, don't 
you see ? " 

I invited Wemmick to come up-stairs, and refresh 
himself with a glass of grog before walking to Wal- 
worth. He accepted the invitation. While he was 
drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing 
to lead up to it, and after having appeared rather 
fidgety: 

" What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday 
on Monday, Mr. Pip?" 

" Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing 
these twelve months." 

"These twelve years, more likely," said Wemmick. 
"Yes. I'm going to take a holiday. More than that; 
I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm going to 
ask you to take a walk with me." 

I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad com- 
panion just then, when Wemmick anticipated me. 

"I know your engagements," said he, "and I know 
you are out of sorts, Mr. Pip. But if you could oblige 
me, 1 should take it as a kindness. It ain't a long walk, 
and it's an early one. Say it might occupy you (in- 
cluding breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. 
Couldn't you stretch a point and manage it?" 

He had done so much for me at various times, that 
this was very little to do for him. I said I could 
manage it — would manage it — and he was so very much 
pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. 
At his particular request, I appointed to call for him at 
the Castle at half -past eight on Monday morning, and 
so we parted for the time, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 443 

Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle 
gate on the Monday morning, and was received by 
Wemmick himself: who struck me as looking tighter 
than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there 
were two glasses of rum-and-milk prepared, and two 
biscuits. The Aged must have been stirring with the 
lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his bedroom, 
I observed that his bed was empty. 

When we had fortified ourselves with the rum-and- 
milk and biscuits, and were going out for the walk with 
that training preparation on us, I was considerably 
surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and 
put it over his shoulder. " Why, we are not going 
fishing!" said I. "No," returned Wemmick, "but I 
like to walk with one." 

I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we 
set off. We went towards Camberwell Green, and 
when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said suddenly : 

" Halloa! Here's a church! " 

There was nothing very surprising in that; but again, 
I was rather surprised, when he said, as if he were ani- 
mated by a brilliant idea: 

"Let's go in!" 

We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the 
porch, and looked all round. In the mean time, Wem- 
mick was diving into his coat-pockets, and getting 
something out of paper there. 

"Halloa!" said he. "Here's a couple of pair of 
gloves! Let's put 'em on! " 

As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post- 
office was widened to its utmost extent, I now began to 
have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened 
into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side 
door, escorting a lady. 

"Halloa!" said Wemmick. "Here's Miss Skiffins! 
Let's have a wedding." 

That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that 
she was now engaged in substituting for her green kid 
gloves, a pair of white. The Aged was likewise occu- 
pied in preparing a similar sacrifice for the altar of 
Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so 
much difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick 
found it necessary to put him with his back against a 
pjllar, and then to get behind the pillar himself and pull 



444 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

away at them, while I for my part held the old gentle- 
man round the waist, that he might present an equal 
and safe resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, 
his gloves were got on to perfection. 

The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were 
ranged in order at those fatal rails. True to his notion 
of seeming to do it all without preparation, I heard 
Wemmick say to himself as he took something out of 
his waistcoat-pocket, before the service began, " Halloa! 
Here's a ring!" 

I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the 
bridegroom; while a little limp pew-opener in a soft 
bonnet like a baby's, made a feint of being the bosom 
friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving 
the lady away, devolved upon the Aged, which led to 
the clergyman's being unintentionally scandalised, and 
it happened thus. When he said, " Who giveth this 
woman to be be married to this man ? " the old gentle- 
man, not in the least knowing what point of the cere- 
mony we had arrived at, stood most amiably beaming 
at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergy- 
man said again, "Who giveth this woman to be mar- 
ried to this man?" The old gentleman being still in a 
state of most estimable unconsciousness, the bride- 
groom cried out in his accustomed voice, "Now Aged 
P. you know; who giveth?" To which the Aged replied 
with great briskness, before saying that he gave, "All 
right, John, all right, my boy!" And the clergyman 
came to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had doubts 
for the moment whether we should get completely mar- 
ried that day. 

It was completely done, however, and when we were 
going out of church, Wemmick took the cover off the 
font, and put his white gloves in it, and put the cover 
on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, 
put her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her 
green. " Now, Mr. Pip," said Wemmick, triumphantly 
shouldering the fishing-rod as we came out, "let me 
ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a 
wedding party!" 

Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, 
a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the 
green; and there was a bagatelle board in the room, 
in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 445 

solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wem- 
mick no longer unwound Wemmick's arm when it 
adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a high-backed 
chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and 
submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument 
might have done. 

We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one 
declined anything on table, Wemmick said, "Provided* 
by contract, you know; don't be afraid of it! " I drank 
to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the 
Castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself 
as agreeable as I could. 

Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I 
again shook hands with him, and wished him joy. 

"Thankee!" said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. 
"She's such a manager of fowls you have no idea. 
You shall have some eggs and judge for yourself. I 
say, Mr. Pip!" calling me back, and speaking low. 
" This is altogether a Walworth sentiment, please." 

" I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain," 
said I. 

Wemmick nodded. "After what you let out the 
other day, Mr. Jaggers may as well not know of it. 
He might think my brain was softening, or something 
of the kind." 



CHAPTER LVI. 



HE lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval 
between his committal for trial, and the coming 
round of the Sessions. He had broken two ribs, they 
had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with 
great pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It 
was a consequence of his hurt that he spoke so low 
as to be scarcely audible; therefore, he spoke very 
little. But, he was ever ready to listen to me, and it 
became the first duty of my life to say to him, and 
read to him, what I knew he ought to hear. 

Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, 
he was removed, after the first day or so, into the 
infirmary. This gave me opportunities of being with 
him that I could not otherwise have had. And but 
for his illness he would have been put in irons, for he 



446 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

was regarded as a determined prison-breaker, and I 
know not what else. 

Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short 
time; hence, the regularly recurring spaces of our sep- 
aration were long enough to record on his face any slight 
changes that occurred in his physical state. I do not 
recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; 
he wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day 
by day from the day when the prison door closed upon 
him. 

The kind of submission or resignation that he showed, 
was that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes 
derived an impression, from his manner or from a whis- 
pered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered 
over the question whether he might have been a better 
man under better circumstances. But, he never justi- 
fied himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to 
bend the past out of its eternal shape. 

It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, 
that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or 
other of the people in attendance on him. A smile 
crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me 
with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had 
seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long 
ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest, 
he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him 
complain. 

When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused 
an application to be made for the postponement of his 
trial until the following Sessions. It was obviously 
made with the assurance that,he could not live so long, 
and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, 
when he was put to the bar, he was seated in a chair. 
No objection was made to my getting close to the dock, 
on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he 
stretched forth to me. 

The trial was very short and very c±ear. Such things 
as could be said for him, were said — how he had taken 
to industrious habits, and had thriven lawfully and 
reputably. But, nothing could unsay the fact that he 
had returned, and was there in presence of the Judge 
and Jury. It was impossible to try him for that, and 
do otherwise than find him Guilty. 

At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 447 

terrible experience of that Sessions) to devote a con- 
cluding day to the passing of Sentences, and to make a 
finishing effect with the Sentence of Death. But for 
the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds 
before me. I could scarcely believe, even as I write these 
words, that I saw two-and-thirty men and women put 
before the Judge to receive that sentence together. 
Foremost among the two-and-thirty, was he; seated, 
that he might get breath enough to keep life in him. 

The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colours 
of the moment, down to the drops of April rain on the 
windows of the court, glittering in the rays of April 
sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it at 
the corner with his hand in mine, were the two-and- 
thirty men and women; some defiant, some stricken 
with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering 
their faces, some staring gloomily about. There had 
been shrieks from among the women convicts, but they 
had been stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The 
sheriffs with their great chains and nosegays, other 
civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great 
gallery full of people — a large theatrical audience — 
looked on, as the two-and-thirty and the Judge were 
solemnly confronted. Then, the Judge addressed them. 
Among the wretched creatures before him whom he 
must single out for special address, was one who almost 
from his infancy had been an offender against the laws; 
who, after repeated imprisonments and punishments, 
had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years; 
and who, under circumstances of great violence and 
daring, had made his escape and been re-sentenced to 
exile tor life. That miserable man would seem for a 
time to have become convinced of his errors, when 
far removed from the scenes of his old offences, and to 
have lived a peaceable and honest life. But in a fatal 
moment, yielding to those propensities and passions, 
the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a 
scourge to society, he had quitted his haven of rest and 
repentance, and had come back to the country where 
he was proscribed. Being here presently denounced, 
he had for a time succeeded in evading the^officers of 
Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of 
flight, he had resisted them, and had — he best knew 
whether by express design, or in the blindness of his 



448 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

hardihood — caused the death of his denouncer, to whom 
his whole career was known. The appointed punish- 
ment for his return to the land that had cast him out, 
being Death, and his case being this aggravated case, 
he must prepare himself to Die. 

The sun was striking in at the great windows of the 
court, through the glittering drops of rain upon the 
glass, and it made a broad shaft of light between the 
two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together, 
and perhaps reminding some among the audience, 
how both were passing on, with absolute equality, to 
the greater Judgment that knoweth all things and 
cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of 
face in this way of light, the prisoner said, " My 
Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the 
Almighty, but I bow to yours," and sat down again. 
There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with 
what he had to say to the rest. Then, they were all 
formally doomed, and some of them were supported 
out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard 
look of bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and 
two or three shook hands, and others went out chew- 
ing the fragments of herb they had taken from the 
sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because 
of having to be helped from his chair and to go very 
slowly; and he held my hand while all the others 
were removed, and while the audience got up (putting 
their dresses right, as they might at church or else- 
where) and pointed down at this criminal or at that, 
and most of all at him and me. 

I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before 
the Recorder's Report was made, but, in the dread of 
his lingering on, I began that night to write out a 
petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting forth 
my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had 
come back for my sake. I wrote it as fervently and 
pathetically as I could, and when I had finished it and 
sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men in 
authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew 
up one to the Crown itself. For several days and 
nights after he was sentenced I took no rest except 
when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed 
in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could 
not keep away from the places where they were, but 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 449 

felt as if they were more hopeful and less desperate 
when I was near them. In this unreasonable restless- 
ness and pain of mind, I would roam the streets of an 
evening, wandering by those offices and houses where 
I had left the petitions. To the present hour, the weary 
western streets of London on a cold dusty spring night, 
with their ranges of stern shut-up mansions and their 
long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this 
association. 

The daily visits I could make him where shortened 
now, and he was more strictly kept. Seeing, or fancy- 
ing, that I was suspected of an intention of carrying 
poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat 
down at his bedside, and told the officer who was 
always there, that I was willing to do anything that 
would assure him of the singleness of my designs. 
Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was 
duty to be done, and it was done, but not harshly. 
The officer always gave me the assurance that he was 
worse, and some other sick prisoners in the room, and 
some other prisoners who attended on them as sick 
nurses (malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, 
God be thanked ! ), always joined in the same 
report. 

As the days went on, I noticed more and more that 
he would lie placidly looking at the white ceiling, with 
an absence of light in his face, until some word of mine 
brightened it for an instant, and tliQn it would subside 
again. Sometimes he was almost, or quite, unable to 
speak; then, he would answer me with slight pressures 
on my hand, and I grew to understand his meaning 
very well. 

The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw 
a greater change in him than I had seen yet. His eyes 
were turned towards the door, and lighted up as I 
entered. 

u Dear boy," he said, as I sat down by his bed: "I 
thought you was late. But I knowed you couldn't be 
that." 

" It is just the time," said I. "I waited for it at the 
gate." 

"You always waits at the gate; don't you, dear 
boy?" 

" Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time." 
vol. I 29 



450 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

" Thank'ee, dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! 
You've never deserted me, dear boy." 

I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget 
that I had once meant to desert him. 

"And what's the best of all," he said, "you've been 
more comfortable alonger me, since I was under a dark 
cloud, than when the sun shone. That's best of all." 

He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. 
Do what he would, and love me though he did, the light 
left his face ever and again, and a film came over the 
placid look at the white ceiling. 

"Are you in much pain to-day?" 

" I don't complain of none, dear boy." 

"You never do complain." 

He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I 
understood his touch to mean that he wished to lift my 
hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it there, and he 
smiled again, and put both his hands upon it. 

The allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, 
looking round, I found the governor of the prison stand- 
ing near me, and he whispered, " You needn't go yet." 
I thanked him gratefully, and asked, "Might I speak 
to him, if he can hear me?" 

The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer 
away. The change, though it was made without noise, 
drew back the film from the placid look at the white 
ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me. 

"Dear Magwitch, I must tell you, now at last. You 
understand what I say?" 

A gentle pressure on my hand 

"You had a child once, whom you loved and lost." 

A stronger pressure on my hand. 

" She lived and found powerful friends. She is living 
now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love 
her!" 

With a last faint effort, which would have been 
powerless but for my yielding to it and assisting it, 
he .raised my hand to his lips. Then he gently let it 
sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying 
on it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, 
and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his 
breast. 

Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought 
of the two men who went up into the Temple to pray, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 451 

and I knew there were no better words that I could say 
beside his bed, than "O Lord, be merciful to him a 
sinner! " 



CHAPTER LVIL 



"VTOW that I was left wholly to myself I gave notice 
-L-N of my intention to quit the chambers in the Temple 
as soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in 
the mean while to underlet them. At once I put bills 
up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely 
any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by 
the state of my affairs. I ought rather to write that 
I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and 
concentration enough to help me to the clear percep- 
tion of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling 
very ill. The late stress upon me had enabled me to 
put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it 
was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, 
and was even careless as to that. 

For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor — 
anywhere, according as I happened to sink down — with 
a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose, and no 
power. Then there came, one night which appeared of 
great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and 
horror; and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my 
bed and think of it, I found I could not do so. 

Whether I really had been down in Garden-court 
in the dead of the night, groping about for the boat that 
I supposed to be there; whether I had two or three*times 
come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not 
knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found 
myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he 
was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were 
blown out; whether I had been inexpressibly harassed 
by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning, of 
some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of 
my own making; whether there had been a closed iron 
furnace in a dark corner of the room, and a voice had 
called out over and over again that Miss Havisham 
was consuming within it; these were things that I 
tried to settle with myself and get into some order, as I 
lay that morning on my bed. But, the vapour of 



452 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

a limekiln would come between me and them, disor- 
dering them all, and it was through the vapour at last 
that I saw two men looking at me. 

"What do you want?" I asked, starting; "I don't 
know you." 

" Well, sir," returned one of them, bending down and 
touching me on the shoulder, "this is a matter that 
you'll soon arrange, I dare say, but you're arrested." 

"What is the debt?" 

" Hundred and twenty -three pound, fifteen, six. 
Jeweller's account, I think." 

"What is to be done?" 

"You had better come to my house," said the man. 
"I keep a very nice house." 

I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. 
When I next attended to them, they were standing a 
little off from the bed, looking at me. I still lay there. 

"You see my state," said I. "I would come with 
you if I could; but indeed I am quite unable. If you 
take me from here, I think I shall die by the way." 

Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to 
encourage me to believe that I was better than I thought. 
Forasmuch as they hang in my memory by only this 
one slender thread, I don't know what they did, except 
that they forbore to remove me. 

That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered 
greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time seemed 
interminable, that I confounded impossible existences 
with my own identity; that I was a brick in the house 
wall, and yet entreating to be released from the giddy 
place where the builders had set me; that I was a steel 
beam of a vast engine clashing and whirling over a 
gulf, and yet that I implored in my own person to have 
the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered off; 
that I passed through these phases of disease, I know 
of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at 
the time. That I sometimes struggled with real people, 
in the belief that they were murderers, and that I would 
all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, 
and would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer 
them to lay me down, I also knew at the time. But, 
above all, I knew that there was a constant tendency 
in all these people — who, when I was very ill, would 
present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 453 

the human face, and would be much dilated in size- 
above all, I say, I knew that there was an extraordinary 
tendency in all these people, sooner or later to settle 
down into the likeness of Joe. 

After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I 
began to notice that while all its other features changed, 
this one consistent feature did not change. "Whoever 
came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened 
my eyes in the night, and I saw in the great chair at 
the bedside, Joe. I opened my eyes in the day, and, 
sitting on the window-seat, smoking his pipe in the 
shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cool- 
ing drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was 
Joe's. I sank back on my pillow after drinking, and 
the face that looked so hopefully and tenderly upon me 
was the face of Joe. 

At last, one day, I took courage, and said " Is it Joe?" 

And the dear old home-voice answered, " Which it 
air, old chap." 

" O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. 
Strike me, Joe. Tell me of my ingratitude. Don't be so 
good to me! " 

For, Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow 
at my side and put his arm round my neck, in his joy 
that I knew him. 

" Which dear old Pip, old chap," said Joe, " you and 
me was ever friends. And when you're well enough to 
go out for a ride — what larks ! " 

After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood 
with his back towards me, wiping his eyes. And as my 
extreme weakness prevented me from getting up and 
going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, "O 
God bless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man!" 

Joe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me; 
but, I was holding his hand and we both felt happy. 

" How long, dear Joe? " 

"Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your 
illness lasted, dear old chap?" 

"Yes, Joe." 

" It's the end of May, Pip. To-morrow is the first of 
June." 

" And have you been here all the time, dear Joe? " 

"Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when 
the news of your being ill were brought by letter, which 



454 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

it were brought by the post, and being formerly single 
he is now married though underpaid for a deal of walk- 
ing and shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his 
part, and marriage were the great wish of his hart " 

" It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt 
you in what you said to Biddy." 

" Which it were," said Joe, " that how you might be 
amongst strangers, and that how you and me having 
been ever friends, a wisit at such a moment might not 
prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, ' Go 
to him, without loss of time.' That," said Joe, summing 
up with his judicial air, " were the word of Biddy. ' Go 
to him/ Biddy say, 'without loss of time.' In short, I 
shouldn't greatly deceive you," Joe added, after a little 
grave reflection, " if I represented to you that the word 
of that young woman were, 'without a minute's loss of 
time.'" 

There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I 
was to be talked to in great moderation, and that I was 
to take a little nourishment at stated frequent times, 
whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that I was to 
submit myself to all his orders. So, I kissed his hand, 
and lay quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to 
Biddy, with my love in it. 

Evidently, Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay 
in bed, looking at him, it made me, in my weak state, 
cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which he 
set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its cur- 
tains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the 
sitting-room, as the airiest and largest, and the carpet 
had been taken away, and the room kept always fresh 
and wholesome night and day. At my own writing- 
table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little 
bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choos- 
ing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large 
tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to 
wield a crowbar or sledge-hammer. It was necessary 
for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left 
elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, 
before he could begin, and when he did begin he made 
every down-stroke so slowly that it might have been 
six feet long, while at every up-stroke I could hear his 
pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that 
the inkstand was on the side of him where it was not, 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 455 

and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed 
quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally he was 
tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block, but 
on the whole he got on very well indeed and when he 
had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot 
from the paper to the crown of his head with his two 
forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, try- 
ing the effect of his performance from various points of 
view as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction. 

Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if 
I had been able to talk much, I deferred asking him 
about Miss Havisham until next day. He shook his 
head when I then asked him if she had recovered? 

"Is she dead, Joe?" 

" Why you see, old chap," said Joe, in a tone of re- 
monstrance, and by way of getting at it by degrees, " I 
wouldn't go so far as to say that, for that's a deal to say; 
but she ain't " 



a 



Living, Joe ?" 

That's nigher where it is," said Joe; "she ain't 
living. " 

" Did she linger long, Joe?" 

" Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you 
might call (if you was to put it) a week," said Joe ; still 
determined, on my account, to come at everything by 
degrees. 

"Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her 
property?" 

"Well, old chap," said Joe, "it do appear that she 
had settled the most of it, which I meantersay tied it 
up, on Miss Estella. But she had wrote out a little 
coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the ac- 
cident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew 
Pocket. And why, do you suppose, above all things, 
Pip, she left that cool four thousand unto him ? ' Because 
of Pip's account of him the said Matthew.' I am told 
by Biddy, that air the writing," said Joe, repeating the 
legal turn as if it did him infinite good, " ' account of 
him the said Matthew.' And a cool four thousand, 
Pip!" 

I never discovered from whom Joe derived the con- 
ventional temperature of the four thousand pounds, but 
it appeared to make the sum of money more to him, and 
he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool. 



456 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the 
only good thing I had done. I asked Joe whether he 
had heard if any of the other relations had any legacies? 

" Miss Sarah/' said Joe, " she have twenty-five pound 
perannium fur to buy pills, on account of being bilious. 

Miss Georgiana, she have twenty pound down. Mrs. 

what's the name of them wild beasts with humps, old 
chap?" 

"Camels?" said I, wondering why he could possibly 
want to know. 

Joe nodded. " Mrs. Camels," by which I presently 
understood he meant Camilla, " she have five pound fur 
to buy rushlights to put her in spirits when she wake 
up in the night." 

The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious 
to me, to give me great confidence in Joe's information. 
"And now," said Joe, "you ain't that strong yet, old 
chap, that you can take in more nor one additional 
shovel-full to-dav. Old Orlick he's been a bustin' open 
a dwelling-ouse. 

"Whose?" said I. 

"Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to 
blusterous," said Joe, apologetically; "still, a English- 
man's ouse in his Castle, and castles must not be busted 
'cept when done in war time. And wotsume'er the 
failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in 
his hart." 

"Is it Pumblechook's house that has been broken 
into, then?" 

"That's it, Pip," said Joe; "and they took his till, 
and they took his cash-box, and they drinked his wine, 
and they partook of his wittles, and they slapped his 
face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him up to 
his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed 
his mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his cry- 
ing out. But he knowed Orlick, and Orlick's in the 
county jail." 

By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted 
conversation. I was slow to gain strength, but I did 
slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe stayed 
with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again. 

For, the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully propor- 
tioned to my need, that I was like a child in his hands. 
He would sit and talk to me in the old confidence, and 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 457 

with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive pro- 
tecting way, so that I would half believe that all my 
life since the days of the old kitchen was one of the 
mental troubles of the fever that was gone. He did 
everything for me except the household work, for 
which he had engaged a very decent woman, after 
paying off the laundress on his first arrival. "Which 
I do assure you, Pip," he would often say, in explana- 
tion of that liberty; " I found her a tapping the spare 
bed, like a cask of beer, and drawing off the feathers 
in a bucket, for sale. Which she would have tapped 
yourn next, and draw'd it off with you a laying on 
it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradi- 
wally in the soup-tureen and wegetable-dishes, and the 
wine and spirits in your Wellington boots." 

We looked forward to the day when I should go out 
for -i ride, as we had once looked forward to the day of 
my apprenticeship. And when the day came, and an 
open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me 
up, took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put 
me in, as if I were still the small helpless creature to 
whom he had so abundantly given of the wealth of his 
great nature. 

And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away to- 
gether into the country, where the rich summer growth 
was already on the trees and on the grass, and sweet 
summer scents filled all the air. The day happened 
to be Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness 
around me, and thought how it had grown and changed, 
and how the little wild flowers had been forming, and 
the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day 
and by night, under the sun and under the stars, while 
poor I lay burning and tossing on my bed, the mere 
remembrance of having burned and tossed there, came 
like a check upon my peace. But, when I heard the 
Sunday bells, and looked around a little more upon the 
outspread beauty, I felt that I was not nearly thankful 
enough — that I was too weak yet, to be even that — and 
I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long 
ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, 
and it was too much for my young senses. 

More composure came to me after a while and we 
talked as we used to talk, lying on the grass at the old 
Battery. There was no change whatever in Joe. 



458 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my 
eyes still; just as simply faithful, just as simply right. 

When we got back again and he lifted me out, and 
carried me — so easily! — across the court and up the 
stairs, I thought of that eventful Christmas Day when 
he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet 
made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I 
know how much of my late history he was acquainted 
with. I was so doubtful of myself now, and put so 
much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself 
whether I ought to refer to it when he did not. 

" Have you heard, Joe/' I asked him that evening, 
upon further consideration, as he smoked his pipe at 
the window, " who my patron was?" 

" I heerd," returned Joe, " as it was not Miss Havi- 
sham, old chap." 

" Did you hear who it was, Joe?" 

" Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the 
person what giv' you the bank-notes at the Jolly Barge- 
men, Pip." 

"So it was." 

" Astonishing! " said Joe, in the placidest way. 

" Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?" I presently 
asked, with increasing diffidence. 

"Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?" 

"Yes." 

"I think," said Joe, after meditating a long time, 
and looking rather evasively at the window-seat, "as I 
did hear tell that how he were something or another in 
a general way in that direction." 

" Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?" 

" Not parti ckler, Pip." 

"If you would like to hear, Joe " I was beginning, 

when Joe got up and came to my sofa. 

" Lookee here, old chap," said Joe, bending over me. 
"Ever the best of friends; ain't us, Pip?" 

I was ashamed to answer him. 

" Wery good, then," said Joe, as if I had answered; 
"that's all right; that's agreed upon. Then why go 
into subjects, old chap, which as betwixt two sech must 
be for ever onnecessary? There's subjects enough as 
betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones. Lord! To 
think of your poor sister and her Rampages! And don't 
you remember Tickler?" 









GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 459 

" I do indeed, Joe." 

" Lookee here, old chap," said Joe. " I done what I 
could to keep you and Tickler in sunders, but my power 
were not always fully equal to my inclinations. For 
when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it 
were not so much," said Joe, in his favourite argumen- 
tative way, "that she dropped into me too, if I put my- 
self in opposition to her but that she dropped into you 
always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain't a grab 
at a man's whisker, nor yet a shake or two of a man 
(to which your sister was quite welcome), that 'ud put a 
man off from getting a little child out of punishment. 
But when that little child is dropped into, heavier, for 
that grab of whisker or shaking, then that man nater- 
ally up and says to himself, 'Where is the good as you 
are a doing? I grant you I see the 'arm/ says the man, 
c but I don't see the good. I call upon you, sir, there- 
fore, to pint out the good.' " 

" The man says?" I observed, as Joe waited for me to 
speak. 

"The man says," Joe assented. "Is he right, that 
man?" 

" Dear Joe, he is always right." 

"Well, old chap," said Joe, "then abide by your 
words. If he's always right (which in general he's 
more likely wrong), he's right when he says this: — Sup- 
posing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when 
you was a little child, you kep it mostly because you 
know'd as J. Gargery's power to part you and Tickler 
in sunders, were not fully equal to his inclinations. 
Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech, 
and do not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary sub- 
jects. Biddy giv' herself a deal o' trouble with me afore 
I left (for I am most awful dull), as I should view it in 
this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should ser 
put it. Both of which," said Joe, quite charmed with 
his logical arrangement, "being done, now this to you 
a true friend, say. Namely. You mustn't go a over- 
doing on it, but you must have your supper and your 
wine-and-water, and you must be put betwixt the 
sheets." 

The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, 
and the sweet tact and kindness with which Biddy — 
who with her woman's wit had found me out so soon — 




460 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 



had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my 
mind. But whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how 
my great expectations had all dissolved, like our 
own marsh mists before the sun, I could not under- 
stand. 

Another thing in Joe that I could not understand 
when it first began to develop itself, but which I soon 
arrived at a sorrowful comprehension of, was this: As 
I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less 
easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence 
on him, the dear fellow had fallen into the old tone, 
and called me by the old names, the dear " old Pip, old 
chap," that now were music in my ears. I too had 
fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that 
he let me. But, imperceptibly, though I held by them 
fast, Joe's hold upon them began to slacken; and 
whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to 
understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the 
fault of it was all mine. 

Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my con- 
stancy, and to think that in prosperity I should grow 
cold to him and cast him off? Had I given Joe's inno- 
cent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got 
stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that 
he had better loosen it in time and let me go, before I 
plucked myself away? 

It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going 
out walking in the Temple Gardens leaning on Joe's 
arm, that I saw this change in him very plainly. We 
had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking 
at the river, and I chanced to say as we got up: 

" See, Joe ! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you 
shall see me walk back by myself." 

" Which do not over-do it, Pip," said Joe ; but I shall 
be happy fur to see you able, sir." 

The last word grated on me ; but how could I remon- 
strate! I walked no further than the gate of the 
gardens, and then pretended to be weaker than I was, 
and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was 
thoughtful. 

I, for my part, was thoughtful too; for how best to 
check this growing change in Joe, was a great per- 
plexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I was ashamed 
to tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 461 

come down to, I do not seek to conceal: but, I hope my 
reluctance was not quite an unworthy one. He would 
want to help me out of his little savings, I knew, and 
I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I must 
not suffer him to do it. 

It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, 
before we went to bed, I had resolved that I would wait 
over to-morrow, to-morrow being Sunday, and would 
begin my new course with the new week. On Monday 
morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I 
would lay aside this last vestige of reserve, I would tell 
him what I had in my thoughts (that Secondly, not yet 
arrived at), and why I had not decided to go out to 
Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for 
ever. As I cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though 
he had sympathetically arrived at a resolution too. 

We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out 
into the country, and then walked in the fields. 

" I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe," I said. 

"Dear old Pip, old chap, yOu're a'most come round, 
sir." 

" It has been a memorable time for me, Joe." 

" Likeways for myself, sir," Joe returned. 

" We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never 
forget. There were days once, I know, that I did 
for a while forget ; but I never shall forget these." 

"Pip," said Joe, appearing a little hurried and 
troubled, " there has been larks. And, dear sir, what 
have been betwixt us — have been." 

At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my 
room, as he had done all through my recovery. He 
asked me if I felt sure that I was as well as in the 
morning? 

"Yes, dear Joe, quite." 

" And are always agetting stronger, old chap?" 

" Yes, dear Joe, steadily." 

Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great 
good hand, and said, in what I thought a husky voice, 
"Good night!" 

When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger 
yet, I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all, without 
delay. I would tell him before breakfast. I would 
dress at once and go to his room and surprise him ; for, 
it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his 



462 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

room, and he was not there. Not only was he not 
there, but his box was gone. 

I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found 
a letter. These were its brief contents : 

" Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again 
dear Pip and will do better without "Jo. 

" P. S. Ever the best of friends." 

Enclosed in the letter, was a receipt for the debt and 
costs on which I had been arrested. Down to that 
moment I had vainly supposed that my creditor had 
withdrawn or suspended proceedings until I should be 
quite recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe's having 
paid the money; but, Joe had paid it, and the receipt 
was in his name. 

What remained for me now, but to follow him to the 
dear old forge, and there to have out my disclosure to 
him, and my penitent 'remonstrance with him, and 
there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved 
Secondly, which had begun as a vague something 
lingering in my thoughts, and had formed into a 
settled purpose? 

The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I 
would show her how humbled and repentant I came 
back, that I would tell her how I had lost all I once 
hoped for, that I would remind her of our old con- 
fidences in my first unhappy time. Then, I would say 
to her, "Biddy, I think you once liked me very well, 
when my errant heart, even while it strayed away from 
you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has 
been since. If you can like me only half as well once 
more, if you can take me with all my faults and disap- 
pointments on my head, if you can receive me like a 
forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and 
have as much need of a hushing voice and a soothing 
hand), I hope lam a little worthier of you than I was — 
not much, but a little. And, Biddy, it shall rest with 
you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, 
or whether I shall try for any different occupation 
down in this country, or whether we shall go away to 
a distant place where an opportunity awaits me which 
T set aside when it was offered, until I knew your 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 463 

answer. And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that 
you will go through the world with me, you will surely 
make it a better world for me, and me a better man 
for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world 
for you." 

Such was my purpose. After three days more of 
recovery, I went down to the old place, to put it in ex- 
ecution. And how I sped in it, is all I have left to tell. 



CHAPTER LVIII. 



THE tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy 
fall, had got down to my native place and its 
neighbourhood, before I got there. I found the Blue 
Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I found that it 
made a great change in the Boar's demeanour. Whereas 
the Boar had cultivated my good opinion with warm 
assiduity when I was coming into property, the Boar 
was exceedingly cool on the subject now that I was 
going out of property. 

It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by 
the journey I had so often made so easily. The Boar 
could not put me into my usual bedroom, which was 
engaged (probably by some one who had expectations), 
and could only assign me a very indifferent chamber 
among the pigeons and post-chaises up the yard. But, 

1 had as sound a sleep in that lodging as in the most 
superior accommodation the Boar could have given me 
and the quality of my dreams was about the same as 
in the best bedroom. 

Early in the morning while my breakfast was get- 
ting ready, I strolled round by Satis House. There 
were printed bills on the gate and on bits of carpet 
hanging out of the windows, announcing a sale by 
auction of the Household Furniture and Effects, next 
week. The House itself was to be sold as old building 
materials, and pulled down. Lot 1 was marked in 
whitewashed knock-knee letters on the brew-house; Lot 

2 on that part of the main building which had been so 
long shut up. Other lots were marked off on other 
parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn down 
to make room for the inscriptions, and much of it trailed 
low in the dust and was withered already. Stepping 



464 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

in for a moment at the open gate, and looking around 
me with the uncomfortable air of a stranger who had 
no business there, I saw the auctioneer's clerk walking 
on the casks and telling them off for the information 
of a catalogue-compiler, pen in hand, who made a tem- 
porary desk of the wheeled chair I had so often pushed 
along to the tune of Old Clem. 

When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar's 
coffee-room, I found Mr. Pumblechook conversing with 
the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved in ap- 
pearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting 
for me, and addressed me in the following terms : 

" Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. 
But what else could be expected ! what else could be 
expected!" 

As he extended his hand with a magnificiently for- 
giving air, and as I was broken by illness and unfit to 
quarrel, I took it. 

" William,"said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, "put 
a muffin on table. And has it come to this! Has it 
come to this ! " 

I f rowningly set down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumble- 
chook stood over me and poured out my tea — before I 
could touch the teapot — with the air of a benefactor 
who was resolved to be true to the last. 

"William," said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, "put 
the salt on. In happier times," addressing me, "I 
think you took sugar? And did you take milk? You 
did. Sugar and milk, William, bring a water- 



cress." 



" Thank you," said I, shortly, " but I don't eat water- 



cresses." 



"You don't eat 'em," returned Mr. Pumblechook, 
sighing and nodding his head several times, as if he 
might have expected that, and as if abstinence from 
watercresses were consistent with my downfall. "True. 
The simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn't bring 
any, William." 

I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook 
continued to stand over me, staring fishily and breath- 
ing noisily, as he always did. 

" Little more than skin and bone ! " mused Mr. Pum- 
blechook, aloud. " And yet when he went away from 
here (I may say with my blessing), and I spread afore 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 465 

him my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump 
as a peach." 

This reminded me of the wonderful difference be* 
tween the servile manner in which he had offered his 
hand in my new prosperity, saying, " May I ? " and the 
ostentatious clemency with which he had just now 
exhibited the same fat five fingers. 

" Hah! " he went on, handing me the bread-and-butter. 
" And air you a going to Joseph? " 

"In Heaven's name," said I, firing in spite of myself, 
" what does it matter to you where I am going? Leave 
that teapot alone." 

It was the worst course I could have taken, because 
it gave Pumblechook the opportunity he wanted. 

"Yes, young man," said he, releasing the handle of 
the article in question, retiring a step or two from my 
table, and speaking for the behoof of the landlord and 
waiter at the door, "I ivill leave that teapot alone. 
You are right, young man. For once, you are right. I 
f orgit myself when I take such an interest in your break- 
fast, as to wish your frame, exhausted by the debilitating 
effects of prodigy gality, to be stimilated by the 'olesome 
nourishment of your forefathers. And yet, " said 
Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and waiter, and 
pointing me out at arm's length, "this is him as I ever 
sported with in his days of happy infancy ! Tell me not 
it cannot be; I tell you this is him! " 

A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter 
appeared to be particularly affected. 

" This is him," said Pumblechook, " as I have rode in 
my shay-cart. This is him as I have seen brought up 
by hand. This is him untoe the sister of which I was 
uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M'ria 
from her own mother, let him deny it if he can!" 

The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny 
it, and that it gave the case a black look. 

" Young man," said Pumblechook, screwing his head 
at me in the old fashion, "you air a going to Joseph. 
What does it matter to me, you ask me, where you air 
a going? I say to you, Sir, you air a going to Joseph." 

The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to 
get over that. 

" Now," said Pumblechook, and all this with a most 
exasperating air of saying in the cause of virtue what 
vol. i. 30 







466 GREAT EXPECTATIONS 



was perfectly convincing and conclusive, "I will tell 
you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of the Boar 
present, known and respected in this town, and here 
is William, which his father's name was Potkins if I 
do not deceive myself." 

" You do not, sir," said William. 

" In their presence," pursued Pumblechook, " I will 
tell you, young man/ what to say to Joseph. Says you, 
' Joseph, I have this day seen my earliest benefactor 
and the founder of my f ortun's. I will name no names, 
Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up-town, 
and I have seen that man.' " 

" I swear I don't see him here," said I. 

"Say that likewise," retorted Pumblechook. "Say 
you said that, and even Joseph will probably betray 
surprise." 

" There you quite mistake him," said I. "I know 
better." 

" Says you," Pumblechook went on, " ' Joseph, I have 
seen that man, and that man bears you no malice and 
bears me no malice. He knows your, character, Joseph, 
and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and 
ignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and 
he knows my want of gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,' 
says you," here Pumblechook shook his head and 
hand at me, " - he knows my total deficiency of 
common human gratitoode. He knows it, Joseph, as 
none can. You do not know it, Joseph, having no call 
to know it, but that man do." 

Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that 
he could have the face to talk thus to mine. 

"Says you, 'Joseph, he gave me a little message, 
which I will now repeat. It was, that in my being 
brought low, he saw the finger of Providence. He 
knowed that finger when he saw it, Joseph, and he 
saw it plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Re- 
ivard of ingratitoode to earliest benefactor, and founder 
of fortunes. But that man said that he did not repent 
of what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right 
to do it, it was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, 
and he would do it again.' " 

" It's a pity," said I, scornfully, as I finished my 
interrupted breakfast, " that the man did not say what 
he had done and would do again." 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 467 

" Squires of the Boar!" Pumblechook was now address- 
ing the landlord, " and William! I have no objections to 
your mentioning, either up-town or down-town, if such 
should be your wishes, that it was right to do it, kind 
to do it, benevolent to do it, and that I would do it 
again." 

With those words the Impostor shook them both by 
the hand, with an air, and left the house; leaving me 
much more astonished than delighted by the virtues of 
that same indefinite "it." I was not long after him in 
leaving the house too, and when I went down the High- 
street I saw him holding forth (no doubt to the same 
effect) at his shop door to a select group, who hon- 
oured me with very unfavourable glances as I passed 
on the opposite side of the way. 

But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and 
to Joe, whose great forbearance shone more brightly 
than before, if that could be, contrasted with this bra- 
zen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for my 
limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing relief 
as I drew nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arro- 
gance and untruthfulness further and further behind. 

The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, 
the larks were soaring high over the green corn, I 
thought all that countryside more beautiful and peace- 
ful by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many 
pleasant pictures of the life that I would lead there, and 
of the change for the better that would come over my 
character when I had a guiding spirit at my side whose 
simple faith and clear home-wisdom I had proved, be- 
guiled my way. They awakened a tender emotion in 
me; for my heart was softened by my return, and such 
a change had come to pass, that I felt like one who was 
toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose 
wanderings had lasted many years. 

The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress, I had 
never seen; but, the little roundabout lane by which 
I entered the village for quietness' sake, took me past 
it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a 
holiday; no children were there, and Biddy's house 
was closed. Some hopeful notion of seeing her, busily 
engaged in her daily duties, before she saw me, had 
been in my mind and was defeated. 

But, the forge was a very short distance off, and I 







468 GREAT EXPECTATIONS 



went towards it under the sweet green limes, listening 
for the clink of Joe's hammer. Long after I ought to 
have heard it, and long after I had fancied I heard it 
and found it but a fancy, all was still. The limes were 
there, and the white thorns were there, and the chestnut- 
trees were there, and their leaves rustled harmoniously 
when I stopped to listen; but, the clink of Joe's ham- 
mer was not in the midsummer wind. 

Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in 
view of the forge, I saw it at last, and saw it was closed. 
No gleam of fire, no glittering shower of sparks, no 
roar of bellows; all shut up, and still. 

But, the house was not deserted, and the best parlour 
seemed to be in use, for there were white curtains flut- 
tering in its window and the window was open and gay 
with flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning to peep 
over the flowers, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, 
arm in arm. 

At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was 
my apparition, but in another moment she was in my 
embrace. I wept to see her, and she wept to see me; 
I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant; she, be- 
cause I looked so worn and white. 

" But dear Biddy, how smart you are!" 

"Yes, dear Pip." 

"And Joe, how smart you are !" 

"'Yes, dear old Pip, old chap." 

I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and 
then 

"It's my wedding-day," cried Biddy, in a burst of 
happiness, " and I am married to Joe!" 

They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid 
my head down on the old deal table. Biddy held one 
of my hands to her lips, and Joe's restoring touch was 
on my shoulder. " Which he warn't strong enough, 
my dear, fur to be surprised," said Joe. And Biddy 
said, "I ought to have thought of it, dear Joe, but I 
was too happy;" They were both so overjoyed to see 
me, so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to 
them, so delighted that I should have come by accident 
to make their day complete. 

My first thought was one of great thankfulness that 
I had never breathed this last baffled hope to Joe. How 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 469 

often, while he was with me in my illness, had it risen 
to my lips. How irrevocable would have been his 
knowledge of it, if he had remained with me but 
another hour! 

" Dear Biddy/ 5 said I, " you have the best husband in 
the whole world, and if you could have seen him by my 

bed you would have But no, you couldn't love him 

better than you do." 

"No, I couldn't indeed," said Biddy. 

"And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole 
world, and she will make you as happy as even you 
deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!" 

Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put 
his sleeve before his eyes. 

"And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church 
to-day, and are in charity and love with all mankind, 
receive my humble thanks for all you have done for me, 
and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am 
going away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, 
and that I shall never rest until I have worked for the 
money with which you have kept me out of prison, and 
have sent it to you, don't think, dear Joe and Biddy, 
that if I could repay it a thousand times over, I sup- 
pose I could cancel a farthing of the debt I owe you, or 
that I would do so if I could!" 

They were both melted by these words, and both en- 
treated me to say no more. 

"But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will 
have children to love, and that some little fellow will 
sit in this chimney corner of a winter night, who may 
remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for 
ever. Don't tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don't 
tell him, Biddy, that I was ungenerous and unjust; only 
tell him that I honoured you both, because you were both 
so good and true, and that, as your child, I said it would 
be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I 
did." 

" I ain't a going," said Joe, from behind his sleeve, 
" to tell him nothink o' that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain't. 
Nor yet no one ain't." 

"And now, though I know you have already done it 
in your own kind hearts, pray tell me, both, that you 
forgive me! Pray let me hear you say the words, that 
I may carry the sound of them away with me and then 



470 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and 
think better of me, in the time to come!" 

"O dear old Pip, old chap/' said Joe. "God knows 
as I forgive you, if I have any think to forgive!" 

"Amen! And God knows I do! " echoed Biddy. 

"Now let me go up and look at my old little room, 
and rest there a few minutes by myself. And then when 
I have eaten and drunk with you, go with me as far as 
the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we sav good- 

W _____________ 

I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for 
a composition with my creditors — who gave me ample 
time to pay them in full — and I went out and joined 
Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England, and 
within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., 
and within four months I assumed my first undivided 
responsibility. For, the beam across the parlour ceiling 
at Mill Pond Bank, had then ceased to tremble under 
old Bill Barley's growls and was at peace, and Herbert 
had gone away to marry Clara, and I was left in sole 
charge of the Eastern Branch until he brought her 
back. 

Many a year went round, before I was a partner ii) 
the House; but I lived happily with Herbert and hia 
wife, and lived frugally, and paid my debts, and mah> 
tained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. 
It was not until I became third in the Firm, that Clar- 
riker betrayed me to Herbert; but, he then declared 
that the secret of Herbert's partnership had been long 
enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So, 
he told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, 
and the dear fellow and I were not the worse friends 
for the long concealment. I must not leave it to be sup- 
posed that we were ever a great House, or that we made 
mints of money. We were not in a grand way of 
business, but we had a good name, and worked for our 
profits, and did very well. We owed so much to Her- 
bert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often 
wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his in- 
aptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflec- 
tion, that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him 
at all, but had been in me. 






GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 471 



CHAPTER LIX. 

FOR eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with 
my bodily eyes — though they had both been often 
before my fancy in the East — when, upon an evening in 
December, an hour or two after dark, I laid my hand 
softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it 
so softly that I was not heard, and I looked in unseen. 
There, smoking his pipe in the old place by the kitchen 
firelight, as hale and as strong as ever though a little 
"rey, sat Joe; and there, fenced into the corner with 
Joe's leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at 
the fire, was 1 again! 

"We giv' him the name of Pip for your sake, dear 
old chap," said Joe, delighted when I took another stool 
by the child's side (but I did not rumple his hair), "and 
we hoped he might grow a little bit like you, and we 
think he do." 

I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next 
morning, and we talked immensely, understanding one 
another to perfection. And I took him down to the 
churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there, 
and he showed me from that elevation which stone was 
sacred to the memory of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, 
and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. 

" Biddy," said I, when I talked with her after dinner, 
as her little girl lay sleeping in her lap, " you must give 
Pip to me, one of these days; or lend him, at all events." 

"No, no," said Biddy, gently. "You must marry." 

" So Herbert and Clara say, but I don't think I shall, 
Biddy. I have so settled down in their home, that it's 
not at all likely. I am already quite an old bachelor." 

Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand 
to her lips, and then put the good matronly hand with 
which she had touched it, into mine. There was some- 
thing in the action and in the light pressure of Biddy's 
wedding-ring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it. 






472 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

"Dear Pip/' said Biddy, "you are sure you don't fret 
for her?" 

" O no— I think not, Biddy." 

"Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite for- 
gotten her?" 

" My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life 
that ever had a foremost place there, and little that 
ever had any place there. But that poor dream, as I 
once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy, all gone by ! " 

Nevertheless, I knew while I said those words, that 
I secretly intended to revisit the site of the old house 
that evening, alone, for her sake. Yes even so. For 
Estella's sake. 

I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and 
as being separated from her husband, who had used her 
with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned 
as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and mean- 
ness. And I had heard of the death of her husband, 
from an accident consequent on his ill-treatment of a 
horse. This release had befallen her some two years 
before; for anything^ I knew, she was married again. 

The early dinner-lfour at Joe's left me abundance of 
time, without hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk 
over to the old spot before dark. But, what with loiter- 
ing on the way, to look at old objects and to think of old 
times, the day had quite declined when I came to the 
place. 

There was no house now, no brewery, no building 
whatever left, but the wall of the old garden. The 
cleared space had been enclosed with a rough fence, 
and looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had 
struck root anew, and was growing green on low (juiet 
mounds of ruin. A gate in the fence standing ajar, I 
pushed it open, and went in. 

A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the 
moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were 
shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, 
and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where 
every part of the old house had been, and where the 
brewery had been, and where the gates, and where the 
casks. I had done so, and was looking along the deso- 
late garden-walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it. 

The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. 
It had been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 473 

drew nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman. As 
I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when it 
stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered 
as if much surprised, and uttered my name, and I 
cried out : 

"Estella!" 

" I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me." 

The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its 
indescribable majesty and its indescribable charm re- 
mained. Those attractions in it, I had seen before; what 
I had never seen before, was the saddened softened light 
of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before, 
was the friendly touch of the once insensible hand. 

We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, 
" After so many years, it is strange that we should thus 
meet again, Estella, here where our first meeting was ! 
Do you often come back?" 

" I have never been here since." 

"Norl." 

The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid 
look at the white ceiling, which had passed away. The 
moon began to rise, and I thought of the pressure on 
my hand when I had spoken the last words he had 
heard on earth. 

Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued 
between us. 

" I have very often hoped and intended to come back, 
but have been prevented by many circumstances. 
Poor, poor old place!" 

The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of 
the moonlight, and the same rays touched the tears that 
dropped from her eyes. Not knowing that I saw them, 
and setting herself to get the better of them, she said 
quietly: 

"Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it 
came to be left in this condition?" 

"Yes, Estella." 

" The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession 
I have not relinquished. Everything else has gone 
from me, little by little, but I have kept this. It was 
the subject of the only determined resistance I made in 
all the wretched years." 

"Is it to be built on?" 

" At last it is. I came here to take leave of it before 



474 GREAT EXPECTATIONS. 

its change. And you," she said, in a voice of touching 
interest to a wanderer, " you live abroad still?" 

" Still." 

" And do well, I am sure? " 

" I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and there- 
fore — Yes, I do well." 

" I have often thought of you," said Estella. 

" Have you?" 

" Of late, very often. There was a long hard time 
when I kept far from me, the remembrance of what I 
had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its 
woxth. But, since my duty has not been incompatible 
with the admission of that remembrance, I have given 
it a place in my heart." 

"You have always held your place in my heart," I 
answered. 

And we were silent again until she spoke. 

" I little thought," said Estella, " that I should take 
leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very 
glad to do so." 

" Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a 
painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last 
parting has been ever mournful and painful." 

" But you said to me," returned Estella, very ear- 
nestly, " ' God bless you, God forgive you! ' And if you 
could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say 
that to me now — now, when suffering has been stronger 
than all other teaching, and has taught me to under- 
stand what your heart used to be. I have been bent 
and broken, but— I hope — into a better shape. Be as 
considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we 
are friends." 

" We are friends," said I, rising and bending over her, 
as she rose from the bench. 

"And will continue friends apart," said Estella. 

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the 
ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long 
ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists 
were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tran- 
quil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of 
another parting from her. 



THE END 





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